TOXINES AND ANTITOXINES, 



GENERAL. 



Introduction. Not long after the principles of bacteriology had 

 been established by ROBERT KOCH, it became the general belief 

 that it was not, in the main, to the bacteria themselves that the 

 chief symptoms of infectious diseases were to be attributed. It 

 was soon recognised that the living micro-organisms were, for 

 the most part, only indirectly harmful, and that their chemical 

 products were to be regarded as the immediate cause of the 

 disease. 



BRIEGER, in particular, pointed out in the very early days of 

 bacteriology that search ought to be made for the specific poisons 

 of bacteria, and he himself endeavoured to discover and isolate 

 these hypothetical poisons. 



He first separated from culture media that had been altered by 

 the growth of bacteria, and notably from the mixed products of 

 putrefaction, a series of well-defined chemical substances which he 

 termed ptomaines nitrogenous bases, some of which were virulent 

 poisons. These substances, however, proved not to be the real bac- 

 terial poisons. They were not the weapons used by the parasites in 

 living bodies. They were not the specific bacterial poisons, which 

 were first grouped under the collective name of " Toxines." Then 

 by degrees the conception of a toxine underwent a natural process 

 of specialisation, so that the term began no longer to connote the 

 poison isolated from any given products of decomposition formed 

 in the vital processes of bacteria, but to be limited to the specific 

 bacterial poison that caused specific illness. Hence this tendency 

 to limit the connotation developed without being the result of 

 conscious thought, or much less of being formulated in set terms. 

 The confusion in the definition was still further increased by the 

 fact that a series of bacterial poisons, apparently related to the 

 proteids, were termed toxalbumins. tinder this name were in- 

 cluded, not only certain poisons that we must to-day regard as 



