THE TOXINES OF THE PNEUMOCOCCUS. 201 



towards mice and guinea-pigs, and to a less extent towards 

 dogs. Rabbits appeared to be immune. The type of the 

 disease was of the nature of a septicaemia. No extended 

 experiments, such as those performed by Gamaleia with 

 Fraenkel's coccus, have been done, and therefore we cannot 

 say whether any similar pneumonic effects are produced by 

 it in partly susceptible animals. The organism appears to 

 be present alone in a small number of cases of pneumonia, 

 and the fact that it also appears to have been the only 

 organism present in certain septicaemia complications of 

 pneumonia, such as empyema and meningitis, render it 

 possible that it may be the causal agent in a few cases of 

 the disease. 



The Toxines of Fraenkel's Pneumococcus. Pneumonia 

 is a disease which presents in many respects the characters 

 of an acute poisoning. In very few cases does death take 

 place from the functions of the lungs being interfered with 

 to such an extent as to cause asphyxia. It is from cardiac 

 failure, from grave interference with the heat -regulating 

 mechanism, and from a general nervous depression that 

 death usually results. These considerations, taken in 

 connection with the fact that in man the pneumococci are 

 usually confined to the lung, suggest that they may produce 

 their general effects by means of toxines. The subject has 

 been investigated by Emmerich and Fowitsky and by G. 

 and F. Klemperer. The latter isolated from recent bouillon 

 cultures, by the methods of Brieger and Fraenkel (p. 137) 

 bodies having the reactions of the toxalbumins obtained in 

 the case of other bacteria. When injected, these toxal- 

 bumins (which they called " pneumotoxin ") produced 

 symptoms in rabbits, and when they were derived not from 

 bouillon cultures but from the blood of animals dead of the 

 disease, they could produce fatal effects. We have seen 

 that the pneumococci rapidly lose their virulence in artificial 

 media, and therefore instead of letting bouillon cultures go 

 on for a month, as in the case of diphtheria, the Klemperers 

 had to be content with two days' growth to obtain the 

 maximum effect. We can say little of the true nature ot 



