loo TOXINS AND ANTITOXINS. 



Camus and Gley,* and later on Kossel f and 

 Tchisto witch, { discovered the first anticytotoxin, 

 which they obtained by treating the animals with 

 increasing quantities of the serum of eels. On 

 mixing the antitoxic serum of these animals in 

 vitro with the red blood-corpuscles of the species 

 furnishing the serum and of the hemolytic serum 

 of eels, it is found that the blood-corpuscles kept 

 quite well. 



As to the blood of the hedgehog, we have already 

 seen that Physalix and Bertrand have shown that 

 it may be a counter-poison towards serpent- venom 

 under certain conditions. In its normal condition 

 it is highly toxic. 



Poisonous Meats. It is particularly among the 

 fish that we find these normally present, and it is 



* Archives internal, de Pharmacodynamte, in and iv. 



t Berliner Klin. W ochenschr . , 1895, No. 7. 



j Annal. de I'Instit. Pasteur, xm, p. 406. 



The name "cytases" or "alexins" has been given to 

 hemolyzing diastatic substances which are found in certain 

 serums. It has been known for a long time that the serum 

 of the blood of many animals destroys the red blood-corpuscles 

 of other and different species. The chemical composition of 

 these cytases or alexins is not yet definitely known, but the 

 substances rank among the albuminoids; they are destroyed 

 by a temperature of 55 to 56 C., and act only in saline 

 solutions (Ehrlich and Morgenroth, Berlin. Klin. Woch., pp. 

 6 and 481). The cytases or alexins, which will be studied 

 in another volume of this collection, and which will discuss 

 the active principles of the immunizing serums, constitute one 

 of the numerous soluble intraleucocytary ferments, and they 

 pass into the serous liquids of the organism only as the result 

 of a rupture of or injury to the phagocytes. 



