Allergia or Anaphylaxis 103 



as it may seem, the antibodies produced in the body of one animal 

 may act as antigens when introduced into another. Thus, Ehrlich 

 and Morgenroth in their studies of hemolysis found that serums 

 rich in immune bodies produced reactions yielding anti-immune 

 bodies, which inhibited the activities of the respective immune 

 bodies by whose stimulation they were produced. 



The reactions which when repeated may lead to immunity 

 and to the formation of antibodies seem to be followed by con- 

 stitutional disturbances much more profound than would be sup- 

 posed from the apparent freedom from symptoms manifested by 

 the animal. As early as 1839 Magendie observed that if a rabbit 

 was given an injection of albumin, and then, some days later, a 

 second injection, it was made very ill and might die. About 1900 

 Mattson in private conversation called the author's attention to the 

 fact that when guinea-pigs used for testing antitoxic serums were 

 subsequently injected with another dose of serum, they commonly 

 died. Not being understood, the matter was not thought worthy 

 of publication. Otto* speaks of this fatal action of serums as the 

 "Theobald-Smith phenomenon," the fact having first been pointed 

 out to him by Smith. 



The first to realize the importance of the condition seem to have 



<en Portier and Richet,f who studied the effect of extracts of the 

 k . isonous tentacles of actiniens upon dogs which were found to die 

 iiiore quickly and from smaller doses given at a second injection 

 than at the first. To this increase of sensitivity to the poison brought 

 about by the initial dose they gave the name anaphylaxis (av nega- 

 tive, <pv\a%is protection, destroying protection or breaking down the 

 defenses). 



The therapeutic employment of diphtheria antitoxic serum 

 was scarcely popularized before the medical profession was shocked 

 by the sudden death of the healthy child of a noted German pro- 

 fessor after a prophylactic injection, and in 1896 Gottsteinf was 

 able to collect eight deaths following the use of the serum, four of them 

 being persons not ill with diphtheria, von Pirquet and Schick also 

 pointed out that in a certain proportion of cases the injection of 

 horse-serum in man is followed by urticarial eruptions, joint-pains, 

 fever, swelling of the lymph-nodes, edema and albuminuria, these, 

 symptoms usually appearing after an incubation period of eight to 

 thirteen days, and constituting what they call the " serum disease," 

 or alter gia. Sometimes these reactions are immediate; sometimes 

 death appears imminent, and, as has been observed, death some- 

 times occurs. 



The investigation of the subject was taken up in 1905 by Rosenau 



* von Lenthold, ".Gedenkschrift," Bd. i, pp. 9, 16, 18. 

 t " Compte rendu de la Soc. de Biol. de Paris," 1902. 

 J "Therap. Monatschrift," 1896. 

 "Die Serumkrankheit," Leipzig and Wien, 1905. 



