/'.-/ ^ T PL A YED B Y FERMENTS, 1 39 



nor to any stronger agent than absolute alcohol. He 

 showed that albumoses and sometimes peptones were 

 formed by the action of the pathogenic bacteria studied, 

 and further, that these albumoses were toxic. In certain 

 cases the process of splitting up of the albumins went 

 further than in peptic digestion, and organic bases or acids 

 might be formed. The characteristic symptoms of the 

 diseases could be explained by compound actions, in which 

 the albumoses were responsible for some of the effects, the 

 other bodies for others. The precise effects produced in 

 the cases studied by Martin will be taken up under the 

 diseases he investigated. A similar digestive action has 

 been traced in the case of the tubercle bacillus by Kiihne. 



The comparison of the action of bacteria in the tissues 

 in the production of these toxines to what takes place in 

 gastric digestion, raises the question of the possibility of 

 the elaboration by these bacteria of ferments by which the 

 process may be started. The problem of toxine formation 

 is thus still further complicated. Martin has described 

 toxic albumoses as occurring in all the diseases he investi- 

 gated, viz. anthrax, ulcerative endocarditis, diphtheria, and 

 tetanus. In each of these cases, therefore, we would be 

 led to suppose that primarily ferments might be produced. 

 Martin carries the analogy to the full, and suggests that, 

 just as by the secretion of ferments into the intestine, 

 the non-soluble albumins of the food are transformed into 

 the soluble albumoses and peptones which are easily 

 absorbed by the intestinal cells, so it is likely that bacteria 

 may excrete ferments which, acting on the albumins in 

 which they are living, may make the latter more available for 

 subsequent absorption as food. Looked at from the side 

 of the animal in or on which the bacteria are living, these 

 products of digestion are toxic, and it is evident that, given 

 a diffusible ferment, we may look on it as the primary toxic 

 agent which acts by producing secondary non - diastatic 

 poisons. There is evidence in some cases that such 

 toxine-producing ferments actually exist, though hitherto all 

 attempts at their isolation in a pure condition have failed. 



