336 PROTEIN POISONS 



injection of fresh defibrinated blood. He states that Bianchi 

 failed to find intravascular thrombi after sublethal doses of 

 the extracts, and that Moldovan met with a like observation 

 after poisoning with defibrinated blood. To us the difference 

 between poisoning with normal tissue extracts and the 

 effects of anaphylactic shock seem quite clear. The organ 

 extracts do not contain a chemical poison, but a ferment. 

 This ferment coagulates the blood and leads to the forma- 

 tion of thrombi. This is a process of protein digestion, and 

 whether a protein poison is set free in it remains for future 

 research to determine. In anaphylactic poisoning the 

 ferment is in the body cell and splits up the protein introduced 

 with the liberation of a protein poison. 



In this connection the work of Blaizot 1 is of interest. 

 When dog's serum is treated with an extract from the intes- 

 tinal mucosa of the dog, or rabbit's serum with an extract 

 of the intestinal mucosa of the rabbit, after a few minutes 

 of contact, if either preparation be injected intravenously 

 into a guinea-pig, acute death results. Extensive thrombi 

 are found in the heart and large vessels. The serum of the 

 guinea-pig is not rendered poisonous by homologous extracts, 

 but is made poisonous by heterologous extracts. 



We must, however, admit with Doerr, that the matrix 

 of Friedberger's anaphylatoxin remains undetermined, with 

 much probability in favor of the possibility of its being in 

 the so-called complement, or the serum of the guinea-pig, 

 the one constant factor in its production. This does not 

 mean that it is not a protein poison. It must be borne in 

 mind that anaphylatoxin is recognized only by its effect, 

 and it has never been even partially isolated from the serum. 

 Our protein poison comes certainly from the protein molecule. 

 It cannot be a ferment as we understand ferments at present. 

 It is thermostabile, and it elaborates no antibody and yet 

 it may be identical with anaphylatoxin, for whether the 

 latter comes from bacterial cells or from the serum it is of 

 protein origin. 



1 Compt. rend. Soc. biol., 1910-11-12. 



