TRICHOTOXIN, HEPATOTOXIN, NEPHROTOXIN 



It is obvious that these results are readily explicable if we 

 assume that the red corpuscles and tissue cells have receptors in 

 common, but that a particular sort of receptor is most abundant in 

 a particular species of cell. But, according to Beebe, sera which 

 are much more sharply specific can be prepared if, instead of 

 injecting the cells themselves, we employ the nucleo-proteid pre- 

 pared from them ; the method had also been employed by Bierry 

 and Pettit in the case of the nucleo-proteids of the liver and 

 kidney. 



Another serum which was prepared early in the history of the 

 subject was trichotoxin, the cytotoxin for the ciliated epithelium. 

 This also, as Von Dungern showed, had a haemolytic action, 

 though he considered that there were no red corpuscles in the 

 substance used for the injections. 



Hepatotoxin is produced by the injection of emulsions of liver 

 cells or of nucleo-proteid prepared from the liver. It causes con- 

 gestion of the liver, fatty or granular degeneration of the proto- 

 plasm, and dilatation of the bile canaliculi. If the serum has 

 been prepared by means of nucleo-proteid, no other organ is 

 affected. But the effects of hepatotoxin may also be produced by 

 nephrotoxic and lienotoxic serum, etc. 



A considerable amount of interesting work has been done on 

 nephrotoxin, and the questions which have arisen are far from 

 having been settled. It is produced in the usual way, by injection 

 of animals with a fine emulsion of kidney cells (well washed 

 to remove blood-corpuscles, etc.) from a foreign species. It 

 produces albuminuria (but no glycosuria, according to Bierry), 

 and symptoms having at least some resemblance to uraemia (coma, 

 etc.) are occasionally produced. These symptoms are not specific, 

 and are frequently caused by injections of other cytolysins (SlpHpo- 

 toxin, etc.), or of emulsions of foreign cells. We have already 

 pointed out that Beebe and others have claimed to be able to 

 produce a truly specific nephrotoxin by means of injections of 

 nucleo-proteid from the kidney. 



Of more interest is the question of the possible formation of 

 an autonephrotoxic body, which might conceivably be produced 

 when part of a kidney becomes disorganized whilst in the living 

 body. It has been thought, for instance, that when a toxin acts 

 on the kidneys it produces death and subsequent solution of the 

 renal epithelium, and that these soluble substances, being absorbed 

 into the system, call forth an autonephrotoxin, which reacts on 



