BACTERIAL POISONS. 67 



proved to exist in pathogenic bacteria, and Macfadyen 1 

 has shown that glycerine extracts of some rapidly lique- 

 fying micro-organisms not only contain enzymes like 

 trypsin and diastase, but that specific toxines can be 

 obtained from the cholera spirillum and Vibrio Metch- 

 nikovi. By means of glycerine Loffler 2 also extracted 

 a diphtheria toxine from cultures carried out on chopped 

 meat, but in this case both the bacilli and the medium 

 were the source of the poison. In connection with the 

 question how far a micro-organism can yield a toxine as 

 a product of its own metabolism, the recent work of 

 Ouchinsky is of importance. Roux and Yersin 3 regard 

 the poison of diphtheria as an enzyme, while Brieger and 

 Frankel 4 speak of this as a toxalbumin, but admitting at 

 the same time that the poisons of cholera, typhoid fever, 

 and pathogenic staphylococci are globulins. According to 

 other investigators the diphtheria poison is an albumose 

 or a body allied to peptone or a member of the nucleo- 

 albumins. 



Fermi 5 cultivated non-pathogenic micro-organisms on 

 Nageli's fluid with the addition of 1-5 per cent, of gly- 

 cerine. He isolated enzymes which had an activity similar 

 to that possessed by trypsin from cultures of Micrococcus 

 prodigiosiis, and Bacillus pyocyane?is.. Guinochet 6 culti- 

 vated Loffler's diphtheria bacillus on bouillon and also on 

 urine, and obtained a toxine by filtration. This was not 

 very powerful, but was sufficiently so to kill guinea-pigs. 

 Since this poison is produced in proteid-free media, he 

 holds that the toxine cannot be looked upon as a tox- 

 albumin, and in a later research it is shown that an accurate 

 chemical statement about this -specific toxine is not possible. 



1 Journ. of Anat. and Phys., April, 1892. 



2 Lofrler, Deutsche med. Woche?ischrift, 1889, Nos. 5 and 6. 



3 Roux et Yersin, Annales de FInstituteit Pasteur, 1888, 1889, 1890. 



4 Brieger and Frankel, Berliner Klin. Woch., 1890. 



5 Fermi, Centralblatt fur Physiologie, 1891. 



'"'Guinochet, Archives de med. exp., vol. iv., No. 4, and Compt. Rend., 

 cxiv., No. 11. 



