ORIGIN AND NATURE OF CERTAIN 

 BACTERIAL POISONS. 



IT is well known that the introduction of sterilised and 

 filtered cultures of specific pathogenic organisms into 

 the bodies of susceptible animals is capable of either 

 causing death or conferring immunity, according to the 

 amount which is injected, though whether the toxic sub- 

 stances of the culture are identical with those that effect 

 a chemical vaccination, is at present undecided. The 

 nature of bacterial poisons has been extensively investi- 

 gated during the last few years, and improved methods 

 for the separation of micro-organisms from cultures, to- 

 gether with a knowledge of the most suitable media on 

 which to cultivate, have considerably modified the views 

 which were formerly held as to the chemical nature of 

 bacterial activity. 



The history of the growth of knowledge on this subject 

 has been traced by Paschoutine, 1 and more recently by 

 Gamaleia. 2 The study of putrefaction by Seybert in 1758 

 was renewed by Gaspard, Magendie and others in the 

 commencement of this century, while Stich, 3 in 1853, 

 published his work on the toxic behaviour of putrefied 

 proteids and faecal excreta. His researches showed that 

 the aqueous extracts of the solid excreta of an animal 

 are poisonous when introduced into its own blood, but 

 not when into the stomach, and, further, the excreta of 

 one species can produce death when introduced into the 

 bowel of another. The classical experiments of Panum 4 



1 Paschoutine, Cours de pathologie generate et experinientale, 1885. 



2 Gamaleia, Les poisons barter iens, 1892. 



3 Stich, Die acute Wirkung putrider Stojfe im Blute. Charite- 

 Annalen, 1S53. 



4 Panum, Virchow's Archiv, Bd. lx., 1874. I' 1 this paper Panum 

 draws attention to his work of 1855-56 which was published in a 

 Danish journal, Bibliothek for Lager, April, 1856. Three years later 

 this was abstracted by Busch in Schmidt's Jahrbucher, 1859, Heft 2, 

 pp. 213-217. 



