290 ANTHRAX, 



that, of the symptoms of the disease, the fever was mostly 

 due to the albumoses, while the oedema and congestion 

 were mostly -due to the alkaloid which acted as a local 

 irritant. He showed that prolonged boiling destroyed the 

 activity of the albumose, but not that of the alkaloid. Further, 

 from the body fluids of animals dead of anthrax he isolated 

 poisonous bodies identical with those produced by the 

 bacilli growing in this artificial medium. Hankin, in a 

 later research with Wesbrook, arrived at the conclusion 

 that the bacillus anthracis produces a ferment which, dif- 

 fusing out into the culture fluid, elaborates albumoses from 

 the proteids present in it. The bacilli also produce 

 albumoses directly without the intervention of a ferment. 

 The albumoses produced in the latter way, when injected 

 in small doses, produce in susceptible animals immunity 

 against subsequent inoculation with virulent bacilli, but are 

 only toxic to animals not very susceptible to the disease. 

 Marmier, after cultivating the B. anthracis in peptone solu- 

 tion containing certain salts, removed all the albumoses from 

 the resultant liquid, and from them, either by dialysis or 

 extraction with glycerine, isolated a body which gave no 

 reactions of albuminoid matter, peptone, propeptone, or 

 alkaloid. This he considers the toxine. It killed animals 

 susceptible to anthrax by a sort of cachexia, and in suitably 

 small doses could be used to immunise them against sub- 

 sequent inoculation with virulent bacilli. It was chiefly 

 retained within the bacilli when these were growing in the 

 most favourable conditions. Unlike the toxines of tetanus 

 and diphtheria, and unlike ferments, it was not destroyed 

 by heating to 110 C. 



From this account of the researches into the toxines of 

 fhe B. anthracis, it will be seen that our knowledge is far 

 from complete. It is difficult to say what interpretation is 

 to be put on the results of Hankin and Wesbrook. The 

 researches of Marmier rather indicate that, as is the case with 

 the toxines of other bacilli, the toxine of anthrax may belong 

 to a group of bodies of whose chemical nature we are in 

 complete ignorance. Be this as it may, the results detailed 



