290 ANAPHYLAXIS 



contains proteolytic enzymes for certain proteins normally. 

 It is also true that the body cells possess the property of 

 digesting the proteins of the blood and building them up 

 again into those which are characteristic of the cell. Hence 

 it appears rational to assume that the foreign proteins act 

 as stimuli to certain cells to produce more of the enzymes 

 necessary to decompose them, so that they may be either 

 built up into cell structure or eliminated as waste. If in 

 this process of splitting up of protein a poison were pro- 

 duced, then the phenomena of ''anaphylaxis" could be 

 better understood. As a matter of fact, Vaughan and his 

 co-workers have shown that by artificially splitting up pro- 

 teins from many different sources— animal, vegetable, path- 

 ogenic and saprophytic bacteria— a poison is produced which 

 appears to be the same in all cases and which causes the 

 symptoms characteristic of anaphylaxis. On the basis of 

 these facts it is seen that anaphylaxis is simply another 

 variety of immunity. The sj^ecific antibody in this case is 

 an enzyme which decomposes the protein instead of precipi- 

 tating it. The enzyme must be specific for the protein, 

 since these differ in constitution. Vaughan even goes so far 

 as to say that the poison is really the central ring com- 

 mon to all proteins and that they differ only in the lateral 

 groups or side chains attached to this central nucleus. The 

 action of the enzyme in this connection would be to split 

 oft' the side chains, and since these are the specific parts of 

 the protein the enzyme must be specific for each protein. 

 The pepsin of the gastric juice and the trypsin of the pan- 

 creas split the native proteins only to peptones. As is well 

 known, these when injected in sufficient quantit}^ give rise 

 to poisonous symptoms, and will also give rise to anaphyl- 

 axis under properly spaced injections. They do not poison 

 normally because they are split by the intestinal erepsin to 

 amino-acids and absorbed as such. Whether Vaughan's 

 theory of protein structure is the true one or not remains to 

 be demonstrated. It is not essential to the theory of ana- 

 phylaxis above outlined, i. e., a phenomenon due to the 

 action of specific antibodies which are enzymes. On physio- 

 logical grounds this appears the most rational of the few 

 explanations of anaphylaxis that have been offered and was 



