192 PROTEIN POISONS 



produce a soluble poison. Subsequent investigations, in 

 our opinion, have established the correctness of this con- 

 clusion. However, there have been several claims to the 

 discovery of soluble poisons in cultures of the anthrax 

 bacillus, and in the bodies of animals dead with this disease, 

 and we will now briefly review some of these claims which 

 are of historical interest. 



Hoffa 1 obtained from pure cultures of the anthrax bacillus 

 small quantities of a substance which he believed to be a 

 ptomain, and the specific poison of this disease. When in- 

 jected under the skin of certain animals it at first increased 

 the respiration and the action of the heart. After a short 

 period the respirations became deep, slow, and irregular. 

 Later the temperature fell below the normal, the pupils were 

 dilated, and a bloody diarrhea set in. Autopsy showed 

 the heart to be in systole, the blood dark, and ecchymoses 

 were found on the pericardium and peritoneum. Subse- 

 quently, Hoffa believed that he had succeeded in isolating 

 this substance from the bodies of animals dead of anthrax. 

 He named it anthracin, and undoubtedly convinced himself 

 for the time at least that he had discovered the specific 

 poison of this disease. No subsequent investigator and 

 several have repeated the experiments has been able to 

 confirm Hoffa's results, and it is now more than probable 

 that his "anthracin" resulted from the action of the agents 

 used in its detection and separation upon the constituents 

 of the fluids with which he worked. 



In 1889 Hankin 2 grew the anthrax bacillus in Liebig's 

 meat extract, to which fibrin had been added, and from 

 this filtered culture he precipitated with ammonium sul- 

 phate an albumose, which, while not directly poisonous to 

 animals when injected simultaneously with an inoculation 

 of the anthrax bacillus, caused more speedy death than 

 when the bacillus only was used. He concluded that the 

 albumose destroys or lessens the natural resistance of the 



1 Ueber die Natur des Milzbrandgiftes, 1886. 



^ British Med. Jour., 1890, ii, 65; Proc. Royal Soc., xlviii, 93. 



