PROTEIN SENSITIZATION OR ANAPHYLAXIS 315 



certainly it can be obtained from all true proteins, as we 

 demonstrated many years ago. The specificity of an infec- 

 tious disease does not lie in the poison which is formed, but 

 in the ferment by which it is formed. The same poison is 

 contained in all bacteria, pathogenic and non-pathogenic, 

 indeed, in all proteins, but there are specific ferments which 

 break up one protein more readily and more completely 

 than other ferments. The specificity lies in neither the 

 substrate, except that it must be a protein, nor in the 

 cleavage product, but in the agent that effects the cleavage. 



Physiological Action of the Protein Poison. Edmunds 1 

 has made the most thorough study of the protein poison, 

 as prepared by Vaughan and Wheeler, reported up to the 

 present time. His experiments were made on dogs and 

 with the "crude soluble poison" made from casein. This 

 preparation contains something less than 10 per cent, of 

 the poison in the purest form in which, so far, we have been 

 able to obtain it, and this is not chemically pure. On 

 account of its importance we make the following, somewhat 

 lengthy, abstract from the paper by Edmunds. 



Intravenous injections in intact dogs are reported as 

 follows: "The most prominent symptoms were a marked 

 depression, disturbance of the alimentary canal, and some 

 respiratory disturbances, the latter consisting of slight 

 acceleration with a slightly labored expiration. In some 

 animals the respiratory symptoms, with the exception of 

 the slight acceleration, were scarcely noticeable. A study 

 of these symptoms shows that they resemble closely those 

 exhibited by dogs which are suffering from anaphylactic 

 shock, although they are milder than those described by 

 Pearce and Eisenbrey and others." 



The effect on the circulatory system was studied upon 

 dogs anesthetized with morphine and paraldehyde. Blood 

 pressure was measured from the carotid, and the respiration 

 recorded by a tambour resting against the chest wall and 

 connected with a second one by which the movements were 



1 Zeitsch. S. Immunitatsforschung, 1913, xvii, 105. 



