4 TOXINES AND ANTITOXIN ES. 



heat. They are not proteids and not toxalbumins, and they show 

 many remarkably close analogies with ferments. 



Physiologically, they are distinguished by being under suitable 

 conditions extremely poisonous, far more so than any other 

 known poisons. Nearly all toxines have also the peculiar 

 characteristic of not acting immediately, but only after a latent 

 period, a time of incubation, in which respect their action is 

 analogous to the poisoning by living bacteria. In spite of their 

 being so extremely poisonous to many animals, exceeding in this 

 respect the most active of the simple poisons, such as hydrocyanic 

 acid, they yet exhibit in only a few cases (e.g., snake poison) the 

 immediate action that is characteristic of the simpler poisons. 

 Above all, they are characterised by the specific nature of their 

 action. Toxines have a peculiar form of activity characteristic of 

 the whole group, as we shall subsequently see. In addition to 

 this, each individual toxine has its own particular mode of action, 

 which, in the case of bacterial toxines, shows a close relationship 

 with the disease produced by the parent cells, being completely 

 analogous in the case of tetanus poison. They are also strictly 

 specific in the narrower sense of the word i.e., they are only 

 able to injure certain -living organisms, whilst they have abso- 

 lutely no effect upon other organisms (some of which are closely 

 allied to them), with which they stand in the fundamental highly 

 important relationship of natural immunity. Nor are their 

 relationships of acquired immunity less important, for it is a 

 fundamental property of toxines to produce in the organism 

 attacked antidotes of a strictly specific nature, which render the 

 poison harmless in vivo, and, when separated from the parent 

 organism, can also exercise their neutralising activity in vitro, 

 each on its respective toxine, and only on that. Thus, each true 

 toxine has also its corresponding true antitoxine. 



Incidentally, it may be mentioned that hitherto all attempts to prepare 

 true antitoxines to the simple crystalloid poisons have been unsuccessful. 

 Even the recent statement by HmscHLAFF, 1 who claimed to have prepared 

 an antimorphine serum, has been shown by MoRGENROTH 2 to be completely 

 unsupported by the facts, and to have been due to want of accuracy in the 

 preparation of the minimum lethal dose. 



Not only have we data for forming a conception of what a 

 toxine is chemically and physically, but we also have a theory 

 based upon them. According to EHKLICH'S side-chain theory, a 

 toxine is a poison which possesses at least two specific atomic 



1 Hirschlaff, "Antimorphinserum," Berl. Idin. Woch., 1902. 



2 Morgenroth, "Zur Frage d. Antimorphinserum," ibid., 1903, 21. 



