158 PHYTOTOXINS AND ZOOTOXINS 



Crabs, in turn, may be poisoned by cephalopods which secrete an active 

 poison from their sahvary glands.'^ INIany coelenterates produce 

 active poisons (most famous of these being the Portuguese-man-o'-war) , 

 which have especially a paralyzing and a local irritant effect. ^^ 



Eel Serum 



In 1888 Mosso'^ studied the toxic properties of eel serum, which he found was 

 extremely poisonous for experimental animals, 0.1 to 0.3 c.c. per kilo being fatal 

 for rabbits and dogs in a few minutes if intravenously injected; introduced into 

 the stomach it is not toxic, but it produces a violent conjunctivitis when it enters 

 the eye, the poisonous agent being contained in the albumin fraction.'' The 

 poisonous principle Mosso called ichthyotoxin. Death results from respiratory 

 failure with large doses; small doses lead to cachexia and death after a few days. 

 The coagulability of the blood is greatly reduced. Kossel-" found histological 

 changes in the central nervous system in such animals, that resembled the lesions 

 of tetanus. He succeeded in securing an active antitoxin which neutralized the 

 strongly hemolytic action of eel serum in vitro, and also prevented fatal effects 

 in animals. Camus and Gley-' have studied the physiological action of eel serum 

 and found it strongly hemolytic, and also apparently neuro-toxic. The toxicity 

 is destroyed by heating to 58° for fifteen minutes. By immunization an antitoxic 

 serum can be obtained which neutralizes the eel toxin completelj\ Tchistovitch-- 

 secured antitoxic seram, which acted also as a precipitin for eel serum. De Lisle^^ 

 found that eel serum does not act like an amboceptor, since after heating it cannot 

 be reactivated with fresh mammalian serum, and it seems, therefore, to be different 

 from snake serum in its structure. ^^ Lamprey serum is likewise toxic,'* as is 

 also that of the Rays. Not only the serum, but also the palate glands of the Moray 

 (Murcena helena) contain toxic antigenic substances resembling snake venoms 

 (Kopacz e wski) . ^^ 



I'' Baglioni, Zeit. f. Biol., 1908 (52), 130. 



1'' See von Fiirth, Vergl. chem. Phvsiol. ; also Lojacono, Jour. d. physiol., 1908 

 (10), 1001. 



18 Arch. Ital. de Biol., 1888 (10), 141; 1889 (12), 229. 

 "Pollot and Rahlson, Graefe's Arch., 1911 (72), 183. 



20 Berl. klin. Woch., 1898 (35), 152. 



21 Arch, internat. d. Pharm., 1899 (5), 247. 



22 Ann. Inst. Pasteur, 1899 (13), 406. 



23 Jour, of Med. Research, 1902 (8), 396. 



2^ Corroborated by Sato, Nippon Biseibutsugakkai Zassi, 1917 (5), No. 35. 

 25 Gley, Compt. Rend. Soc. Biol., 1915 (78), 116; Camus and Gley, ibid., p. 203. 

 2« Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci., 1917 (165), 513; Ann. Inst. Pasteur, 1918 (32), 584. 



