RELATION OF TOXINES TO ANTITOXINES. 29 



to represent them as " substances akin to ferments" There is no 

 support for the unthinking transference "of this notion from the 

 toxines, and its only result would be to weaken the conception 

 that toxines are closely related to ferments. Toxines, and 

 probably also some ferments, have a haptophore and at least 

 one " ergophore " group. They can not only combine, but also 

 attack. Antitoxines do not possess the latter characteristic; 

 they can only combine, and so ward off the toxophore group 

 from the threatened cell, but not injure it. WASSERMANN'S 

 experiments on pyocyaneus poison and CALMETTE'S on snake 

 poison prove that the toxine remains intact in a mixture of 

 toxine and antitoxine, and that after destruction of the anti- 

 toxine the toxine can again manifest its activity (vide infra). 

 Antitoxines, therefore, are not active substances, not "ferments." 

 Antitoxines, as such, are physiologically completely inert, and 

 are unable to produce any toxic effects. 



This, of course, only holds good for antitoxines by themselves 

 and not for the sera in which they are present. It is true that 

 unlimited quantities of horse serum containing antitoxine can be 

 injected into a horse without producing any by-reactions. But, 

 on the other hand, albuminous substances foreign to the body 

 are in a certain sense invariably poisonous. They, too, give rise 

 to protective substances the precipitines described by MYERS 

 and others. 1 It is thus evident that unlimited quantities of 

 horse serum cannot be injected into animals of different species. 

 In fact, disturbances due to this cause have frequently been 

 observed in the therapeutic use of diphtheria serum (q.v.). In 

 such cases, however, the disturbances must be attributed to the 

 serum rather than to the antitoxine itself. 



There is, doubtless, a connection between the struggle of the 

 organism to eliminate foreign albuminous matters and KNORR's 2 

 observation that antitoxines injected with sera foreign to the 

 body speedily disappear, whilst antitoxines introduced in the 

 sera of the same species remain for a very long time in the 

 organism. 



Behaviour of Toxines towards Antitoxines. We have already 

 stated in the introduction that an essential characteristic in the 

 definition of a toxine is that true toxines produce an antidote, an 

 antitoxine in the body of the attacked organism. This fact, 



1 For further particulars and bibliography of precipitines cf. Michaelis 

 and Oppenheimer, "Ueber Immunitat geg. Eiweisskorper," Engelmanris 

 Arch., 1902, Suppl. H. 



2 Knorr, "Das Tetanusgift u. s. Bezieh. zum tier. Organismus," Munch, 

 med. Woch., 1898, 321, 362. 



