VENOMS, TOXINS, ANTIBODIES 377 



of 42°C. Since toxin inactivation is accelerated enormously more than 

 the toxic effect itself in the range between body temperature and 47°C., 

 this artificial fever should have increased the length of survival of the 

 guinea pigs used. Experiments showed that the mean length of life 

 of the animals was: irradiated, 8.8 days; control, 3.5 days. This Sonne 

 believed to mean that 40 per cent of the toxin had been destroyed. Other 

 explanations he thought had only a speculative basis. 



However, Liidke (108) among others has shown that warming increases 

 the amount of certain antibodies in the blood stream of immunized ani- 

 mals, and in particular notes this for diphtheria agglutinin. 



Colebrook, Eidinow, and Hill (36), as well as Hartley (74), were 

 unable to find any effect of visible or visible plus ultra-violet irradiation 

 on the antitoxin titer of serum from animals immunized against diphtheria 

 and then irradiated. Since their sources used only a few hundred watts 

 compared with Sonne's 3500, and besides that were not collected and 

 intensified by lens systems, the two sets of experiments are hardly 

 comparable, and their failure to find any effect does not cast doubt on 

 Sonne's findings, nor does it eliminate possible changes in antitoxin titer 

 as possible participants in the effects observed by him. Moreover, 

 Jodlbauer and Tappeiner (94)^ seem to have given adequate proof that 

 photodynamic irradiation saves animals from lethal doses of the toxin 

 ricin by photochemical effect, since survival is possible only when eosin 

 has been recently injected at the site of toxin injection. Elsewhere it has 

 relatively little effect. Accordingly we are also led to suspect the 

 participation of direct photochemical inactivation of toxin in Sonne's 

 experiments. Nevertheless, the probable participation of other mecha- 

 nisms must not lead us to forget, here or elsewhere, that the action 

 postulated by Sonne is, qualitatively at least, inevitable ; it occurs regard- 

 less of the modifying effects of other simultaneous processes. 



Gerhartz (70), too, adopted the explanation that toxin was destroyed 

 in vivo by irradiation, this time with X-rays, to explain the longer survival 

 of rabbits given a lethal dose of diphtheria toxin and then irradiated. 

 The conclusiveness of his data was attacked by Morgenroth (120) and 

 the ensuing polemics add little to our knowledge but uncertainty. In any 

 event, the considerations mentioned above for visible light apply here 

 also. 



Lusztig (111) was unable to find that X-rays afforded any protection 

 against diphtheria toxin alone, although small doses did seem to lengthen 

 the life of animals given fatal injections of a toxin-antitoxin mixture, and 

 to protect against Shiga dysentery toxin either alone or mixed with anti- 

 toxin. But the data are statistically inconclusive, and speculation 

 as to possible explanations therefore uncalled for. 



^ Photodynamic protection against toxins was also described by Tappeiner and 

 Jodlbauer (155) and by Flexner and Noguchi (61). 



