GENERAL PHENOMENA OF IMMUNITY 33 



They do not directly account for permanent improvement seen in 

 many patients, but if they rid the body of toxic substances for a 

 short period of time the natural resistance may thereby become 

 more effective than would otherwise be the case. 



The Site of Antibody Formation. Aside from a few fairly well- 

 established facts the problem as to exactly where antibodies are 

 formed still remains obscure. In general it is assumed that anti- 

 bodies are not products of simple inversions of the foreign protein 

 substances parentally introduced or as particular functions of spe- 

 cial organs, but are the result of general cell reactions on the part 

 of the host. Much evidence points to the lymphatic organs, the 

 spleen, the liver, and the bone marrow as places where antibody 

 formation is most active. Metchnikoff thought that antitoxins and 

 bacteriolysins originate in the lymphatic organs and more particu- 

 larly in the spleen and the bone marrow. Bordet attempted to 

 show that bacteriolysins are derived from the leucocytes. Pfeiffer 

 and Mark injected dead cholera spirilla into animals, exsanguinated 

 these five days after the injection, and found the antibodies more 

 concentrated in the spleen than in the blood serum itself. These 

 authors also found that after a single injection of these organisms, 

 the spleen, the bone marrow, and the lymph-nodes contained the 

 specific antibodies before they could be detected in the blood, and 

 further that as time passed these tissues became less active in spite 

 of the fact that the bacteriolysins increased in the blood. Deutsch 

 corroborated these findings with bacillus typhosus and Castellani 

 with bacillus dysenterise. These authors agree, however, that the 

 spleen is not essential, since its removal but slightly inhibits the 

 formation of antibodies. Hektoen's experiments demonstrated that 

 in dogs splenectomy just before and after the injection of alien 

 blood-corpuscles was followed by a much lower, but otherwise typi- 

 cal antibody curve, than is usually the case in dogs under normal 

 conditions. London also reported a decreased formation of 

 hemolysins after splenectomy, but this work has been contradicted 

 by Yakuschewitch. Karsner, Amiral, and Bock found that splenec- 

 tomy produces no change in hemopsonins of the circulating blood 

 that is clearly demonstrable by in vitro test, and that the blood from 

 the spleen is no richer in hemopsonins than is blood from other 

 organs. Carrel and Ingebrigsten have produced hemolysins in the 

 growing embryonic spleen. More recently Przygode succeeded in 

 producing precipitins in vitro by culture of splenic tissue, and Miiller 

 by transplanting splenic tissue from guinea-pigs, previously injected 

 with sheep corpuscles, into the peritoneal cavity of normal guinea- 

 pigs. It seems to us that since the spleen is an organ physiologically 

 designated for the destruction of erythrocytes and also of other 

 foreign substances through the activity of its hemophages, splenic 

 tissue on transplantation will carry with it much antigenic sub- 

 stance. Whether or not these hemophages participate in antibody 

 production is at present difficult to say. 



