30 TOXINES AND ANTITOXINES. 



which was first discovered by EHRLICH * in his fundamental ex- 

 periments with ricine, a vegetable poison closely akin to the 

 bacterial toxines, has now become so firmly established that we 

 even have to regard the formation of antitoxine as a radical 

 property of the true toxine. It is not possible in this place to 

 deal with the significance that this formation of antitoxine in 

 the organism has for the disappearance of infectious diseases, and 

 for the development of the state of acquired immunity, or with 

 the way in which these phenomena have been used as supports 

 of the monumental side-chain theory. 



Here it is only necessary to describe the experimentally- 

 determined relation between the toxine and its antitoxine as 

 exactly as is possible in the present state of our knowledge, 

 which, for the most part, we owe to the unwearying classical 

 researches of EHRLICH. 



According to the side-chain theory, the only poisons that can 

 act as true toxines are those that possess a specific affinity for the 

 definite cells. For the representation of this specific affinity, 

 EHRLICH assumes that both sides, the toxine on the one hand, 

 and the attacked cell on the other, each have in their protoplasm 

 an atomic group which reciprocally coincide, and thus enter into 

 combination, and bring the toxine within the immediate reach of 

 the cells. The first step in the action of the toxine is thus a concen- 

 tration of the poison upon the cell by means of the reciprocal 

 " haptophore " groups. The cell is now through this concentra- 

 tion brought within the sphere of action of the toxine, and then 

 follows as the second phase the specific action of the poison upon 

 the cell a function of the second specific the "toxophore" group. 2 



Toxines thus combine with the haptophore groups of cells, 

 which are active as regards their " side-chains." If now, as in 

 artificial immunisation, such side-chains provided with hapto- 

 phore groups are produced in excess, and separated in a free 

 state in the fluids of the body, especially the blood serum, these 

 haptophore groups retain their capacity of entering into combina- 

 tion with the corresponding haptophore groups of the toxine. 

 Hence these brok en-offside-chains represent the specific antitoxine 

 to the toxine. 



1 Ehrlich, " Experimentelle Unters. iiber Immunitat," Deutsch. med. 

 Woch., 976, 1218, 1891; also " Zur Kenntnis der Antitoxinwirkung," 

 Fortsch. d. Med., 1897, 41. 



2 The theory only speaks of atomic groupings in a substance, and Ehrlich 

 has never asserted that a toxine consists of two substances a haptophore 

 and a toxophore substance as Danysz (Ann. Past., 1899, 581) credits him 

 with stating. Danysz, who confuses the process of plasmatolysis with 

 toxine activity, has misunderstood Ehrlich. 



