TOXINES. 1 5 



poison after the toxine and gas had been kept in contact for four 

 days in a sealed tube. 



Protoplasmic poisons, such as carbolic acid, chloroform, &c., 

 have no materially injurious effect. Alcohol is very injurious. 

 According to SALKOWSKi, 1 salicylic aldehyde is extremely harm- 

 ful, and he makes the same statement as to the action of chloro- 

 form and formalin. 



Iodine and carbon bisulphide have probably a quite distinctive 

 mode of action, inasmuch as they appear to attack only the toxo- 

 phore group, and to tend to the formation of toxoids (EnELiCH 2 ). 

 Thymus extract has apparently a similar action (BRIEGER, 

 KITASATO, and WASSERMANN. S 



Fate of Toxine s in the Organism. Toxines disappear fairly 

 rapidly after their introduction into the circulatory system of 

 susceptible animals. In a short time the blood is completely 

 free from toxines, as has been proved by the experiments of 

 BOMSTEIN, CROLY, and BRUNNER on diphtheria (q.v.), the virus 

 having entered into close combination somewhere or other in the 

 latent stage of its activity, as has been shown by the researches 

 of DONITZ 4 and others. DONITZ found that he could not save 

 infected animals by the injection of antitoxines, even when only 

 a few minutes had elapsed after the poisoning, since the toxine 

 was no longer in a free condition when it encountered the anti- 

 dote. Only by the injection of very large doses is it possible 

 after a certain time to break up the combination of the toxine 

 with the cells of the body, and so destroy the effects of the latent 

 poisoning. Yet e\ien then there is a time limit, and after its 

 expiry, notably in the case of tetanus, even huge doses of anti- 

 toxine are no longer of any avail. Herein lies one of the causes 

 of the defective therapeutical results in the serum treatment of 

 tetanus. According to the latest views on tetanus, the antitoxine 

 cannot follow the toxine in the nerve tracts. (For further par- 

 ticulars see Tetanus.) 



A toxine escapes detection as such when small doses are 

 injected into the body. Thus, if a single lethal dose, or a small 

 multiple thereof, be injected into a susceptible animal, the poison 

 rapidly disappears from the blood, nor can it then be detected in 



1 SalkoAvski, "Ueber die Wirkung der Antiseptica auf Toxine," BerL 

 Uin. Woch., 1898 (No. 25), 545. 



2 Ehrlich, "Die Wertbemessung des Diphtherieheilserums," Klin. 

 Jahrbuch, vi. 



3 Brieger, Kitasato, and Wassermann, "Immunitat u. Giftfestigung," 

 Ze.it. f. ffyg., xii., 137, 1892. 



4 Donitz, "Ueber des Tetanus-antitoxin," Deutsche med. Woch., 1897, 

 428. 



