On the Production of a Specific Gastrotoxic Serum. 135 



<( On the Production of a Specific Gastrotoxic Serum. Pre- 

 liminary Communication." By CHARLES BOLTON, M.D., B.Sc., 

 M.E.C.P., Eesearch Scholar of the Grocers' Company. Com- 

 municated by Professor SIDNEY MARTIN, F.E.S. Eeceived 

 July 26, 1904. 



(From the Pathological Laboratory, University College.) 

 [PLATES 8 AND 9.] 



Within the last four or five years the study of cytotoxins has 

 advanced rapidly, but this difficult subject is still involved in a vast 

 amount of obscurity. Very few of the cytotoxins have been at all 

 fully worked out, and, since it is becoming recognised that specificity 

 is a term which should be applied to receptors and not to cells, the 

 existence of many specific cytotoxins is doubted. 



The present research was, therefore, undertaken from two points of 

 view : (1) To add, if possible, any facts to our knowledge of cytotoxic 

 action, (2) To throw some light upon the pathology of human gastric 

 ulcer. 



My first endeavour was to produce a hetero-gastrolytic serum by 

 the injection of the mucous membrane of the stomach of the guinea- 

 pig into the rabbit. Having succeeded in this direction, I then 

 attempted to produce an iso-gastrolytic serum by the injection of the 

 stomach cells of the rabbit into the rabbit and also of the stomach 

 cells of the guinea-pig into the guinea-pig. In commencing the work 

 I fully realised the difficulty of excluding bacterial infection and 

 therefore have adopted strictly aseptic measures in the preparation of 

 the mucous membrane for injection, making in addition bacteriological 

 examinations of the injected animals. 



Intraperitoneal injections are given, and in spite of the strictest 

 precautions death occasionally results from bacterial infection ; I have, 

 however, succeeded in immunising 14 animals, and by injection of the 

 serum obtained from them have produced lesions in the stomachs of 

 over 50 animals, and have been able to show that the peritoneal cavity 

 of immunised animals was sterile on bacteriological examination, whilst 

 their blood serum was highly toxic for other animals. 



The subject will be discussed under the following headings : 



(1.) Methods. 



(2.) Effects of Injection of the Stomach Cells of the Guinea-pig into 

 the Eabbit. 



(a) Symptoms following injection. 



(b) Changes in the rabbit's blood. 



Action of the serum on guinea-pig's cells in vitro. 



