PYROGENIC PROPERTIES OF PROTEINS 631 



can exist without fever, and it is probable that it were bet- 

 ter related to a coincidence of the appearance of products 

 of abnormal protein cleavage in the blood along with dis- 

 turbance of the renal function. 56 



American authors hold that fever may be a result of 

 parenteral digestion of protein, without the protein being 

 of necessity of bacterial origin; that thus we are able by 

 repeated subcutaneous injection of egg-albumin in rabbits 

 to induce a typhoid-like fever. The difference between the 

 action of the white of egg and of the typhoid bacilli in the 

 body would seem to consist only in the fact that the egg 

 albumin is incapable of further development. 51 Contrary to 

 this idea Schittenhelm, Weichhardt and Hartmann, 58 who in- 

 jected intravenously into animals egg albumin, sheep serum, 

 peptone, aminoacids and bacterial protein, come to a dia- 

 metrically opposed conclusion, that animal proteins and 

 their cleavage products have absolutely no effect toward 

 raising temperature when introduced in quantities which 

 have proved in case of the bacterial proteins to be decidedly 

 febrogenic, E. Nobel, in the laboratory of Edwin Faust, 

 was able recently to isolate from colon bacilli killed by heat 

 and from cultures of these microorganisms an abiuret therni- 

 ogenic substance. 59 The often-quoted statement that fibrin 

 ferment acts to produce fever has been disproved by studies 

 emanating from the medical clinic at Heidelberg. However, 

 the destruction of non-specific or of autogenous blood cells 

 in the circulation does produce fever; and, too, in the de- 

 struction of the very labile blood platelets pyrogenic sub- 

 stances seem to be set free. 60 



M Cf. F. Kraus, 1. c., pp. 609-610. 



n V. C. Vaughan and his associates (Univ. of Michigan), Jour, of Amer. 

 Med. Assoc., 53, 629, 1909; Zeitschr. f. Immunitatsforschung, 9, 458, 1011. 



68 A. Schittenhelm, W. Weichhardt and F. Hartmann (Erlangen), Zeitschr. 

 f. exper. Pathol., 10, 448, 1912. 



88 E. Nobel (Lab. of E. Faust, Wurzburg), Arch. f. exper. Pathol., 68, 371, 

 1912. 



H. Freund (Med. Clinic, Heidelberg), Deutsch. Arch. f. klin. Med., 105, 

 44, 1912; 106, 556, 1912. 



