Ill 



suppose, that also the toxin-antitoxin is eleclrolytically 

 dissociated, and that it has the constitution of a salt; and 

 as little the lysin needs to be considered a base and 

 the antitoxin an acid. The experiments made in this 

 direction, certainly not very systematic, indicate that 

 matters do not stand so, but that here rather a case of 

 common dissociation is present. Perhaps it is also 

 worth notice, that according to the above equation the 

 dissociation of the toxin-antitoxin is not changed with 

 the dilution. 



The resemblance between the combination of toxin 

 through antitoxin and the neutralisation of a base by 

 means of an acid was already early searched for. The 

 non success in detecting this resemblance depends on, 

 that the neutralisation of a base through an acid was 

 always considered to take place as in the case of strong 

 bases and strong acids, where complete neutralisation 

 occurs, when they are mixed together in equivalent 

 amounts. This phenomenon is represented by the 

 straight line on fig. 5. 



If a strong acid, for instance hydrochloric acid, be 

 added to a not all to weak base (f. inst. ammonia), the ac- 

 tion of NH 3 as base (f. inst. its hiemolytic action) is 

 completely suppressed, a soon as an equivalent amount 

 of acid is added. If only half an equivalent of acid be 

 added to one equivalent of the base, then its action is 

 reduced to the half and the addition of one third equiva- 

 lent of acid will reduce the action of the base to % 

 and so on. The neutralising action of the acid is pro- 

 portionate to the amount added until complete neutra- 

 lisation takes place; after this the acid has no more 

 neutralising action. But the difference between this 

 phenomenon and the neutralisation of, f. inst., ammo- 

 nia with boracic acid or lysin with antilysin is in reality 



68 



