236 CHEMISTRY OF THE IMMCMTY REACTIONS 



Beebe^* has secured an antiserum to wliich he ascribes some effect upon diseased 

 thyroids (exophthalmic goiter). MacCallum^' could not get a specific semm for 

 parathyroid tissue. 



Numerous reports may be found indicating attempts, with varying 

 success, to obtain serum toxic for other tissues. Among them may be 

 mentioned epitheliolysi7i^ (for ciliated epitheHum), spermatotoxin,'^ 

 hepatolysin, cardiolysin, splenolysin, and syncytiolysin.^ Special at- 

 tention has been given to the production of specific lysins for cancer 

 cells, without definite success. (See Chapter xix.) In general it 

 can be said that it has 7iot been found possible in this way to throw 

 out of function one particular organ, with or without involvement of 

 other structures. "* The principles involved in all these experiments are 

 the same, and the results are in no instance altogether satisfactory; 

 therefore no further consideration of these special cytotoxic serums 

 will be made here, the reader being referred to other sources for de- 

 tails.^ It may be said, however, that recent developments indicate 

 that various tissues not only contain proteins which exhibit the species 

 characteristics of the entire animal, but also other proteins or anti- 

 genic radicals which are more or less independent of these and char- 

 acteristic to a certain degree for the tissue from which the antigen 

 was obtained. This being the case, we cannot consider the problem 

 of specific cytotoxins a closed chapter; improved methods for sepa- 

 rating our antigens may yet enable us to secure antibodies specific for 

 a single tissue or organ. (See Specificity of Antigens, Chap, vii.) 

 However, by the useful method of studying the eifect of cytotoxic 

 serum on the growth of tissue cultures in vitro, Lambert^ found no 

 evidence whatever of specificity, although there- is a non-specific inhi- 

 bition of growth by the immune sera. 



«» Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc, 1906 (46), 484. Not corroborated by Portis and 

 Bach, ibid., 1914 (62), 1884. 

 3« Med. News, 1903 (83), 820. 



1 See Galli-Valerio, Zeit. Immunitilt, 1915 (24), 311. 



^Taylor (Jour. Biol. Cheni., 1908 (5), 311) made the interesting observation 

 that no spermatolytic serum could be obtained by immunizing with isolated 

 nucleic acid, protamines, or ether extracts of sperm, although immunizing with 

 whole sperm produced active sera. 



3 Lake, Jour. Infect. Dis., 1914 (14), 385. 



^ .\n attempt to produce a specific cytolytic serum for tlie islands of Langerhans 

 by Kamimura was unsuccessful. (Mitt. med. Fak. Univ. Tokio, 1917 (17), 95). 

 Ogata, however, reports the production of a specific IhymoCoxic serum (Rep. Univ. 

 Kioto, 1917 (1), 449). 



** Biochemisches Centralblatt, 1903 (1), 573, el scq.; also see Sata, Ziegler's 

 Beitr., 1906 (39), 1; and literature cited previously. 



« Jour. Exp. Med., 1914 (19), 277; also Walton, ibid., 1915 (22), 194. 



