BACTERIOLYSIS AND ALLIED PHENOMENA 



the kidney, dissolving more cells, which produce more of the anti- 

 body, a vicious circle being thus produced. Hence a pathology 

 for nephritis and uraemia on quite new lines was suggested by 

 Ascoli and Figari and Lindeman, etc. Thus the cardiac hyper- 

 trophy of renal disease is supposed to be due to a spasm of the 

 peripheral vessels and increase of blood-pressure due to the 

 nephrotoxic serum ; the nervous symptoms on the supposition 

 that there is a neurotoxin produced concurrently with the nephro- 

 toxin, and spontaneous recovery by the production of an anti-auto- 

 nephrotoxin, a substance for the existence of which there is a 

 little evidence. 



There is a certain amount of experimental confirmation of this 

 theory. Thus Lindeman treated dogs with potassium bichromate, 

 causing nephritis, and found that the serum of these animals 

 (though free from bichromate) was toxic for other dogs. Again, 

 Le Play and Corpechot found that the injection of renal tissue 

 (of the guinea-pig) into the rabbit produced important organic 

 lesions : great increase in volume, fibrosis of the connective 

 tissues, cystic dilatations of the tubules, and desquamation of the 

 renal epithelium. That these changes may be due to the produc- 

 tion of a nephrolysin appears possible from the fact that when 

 these injections are made in gravid animals similar appearances 

 may be seen in the kidneys of the foatus, suggesting that the 

 nephrolysins traverse the placenta (Charrin and Delaware). 

 Albarran and Bernard also found that renal tissue is lethal on 

 injection, but Pearce denies this, and holds that their animals 

 were killed by bacterial infection. Further, Nefedieff ligatured 

 one ureter (in the rabbit), and found changes similar to those 

 seen in chronic nephritis. His results, might, of course, have 

 been due to the formation of a nephrotoxin in consequence of 

 the disintegration of the renal cells subsequent to ligature of 

 the ureter ; but Albarran pointed out that, according to Nefedieff 

 himself, the second kidney was unaffected at a time when the 

 serum was nephrotoxic, as tested on other animals. Sheldon 

 Amos failed to reproduce Nefedieff's results; according to her, 

 ligature of one ureter causes death after an average period of sixty- 

 nine and a half days in the guinea-pig, and fifty-two days in the 

 rabbit. There may be lesions on the control side, but if so these 

 are slight, and the liver is also affected. But that these results are 

 due to the action of a nephrotoxic serum appears most unlikely, 

 from the fact that when the whole pedicle of the kidney, or the 



