TETANUS TOXINE. 103 



groups, and is closely related to diphtheria toxine in its main 

 characteristics, and, like the latter, is very valuable for our 

 theoretical conceptions. 



The specific convulsion-producing poison of tetanus was isolated 

 at an early period from the cultivations by the same methods as 

 were employed for diphtheria poison. Almost simultaneously 

 KITASATO and WEYL 1 and BRIEGER and FRANKEL (loc. cit.) 

 separated from cultivations their toxalbumin which they recog- 

 nised as the specific poison, soluble in water. FABER 2 was the 

 first to obtain, by filtration of not quite pure cultivations, an 

 active poison, which he found even at that stage to possess the 

 essential properties of tetanus toxine. 



The results of further investigations into tetanus toxine were 

 then published by TIZZONI and CATTANi, 3 KITASATO,* and by 

 VAILLARD 5 and his co-workers. 



The bacteria, when grown anaerobically on ordinary bouillon 

 and on blood serum, produce very poisonous toxines. Particu- 

 larly active solutions of poison were obtained by VAILLARD and 

 VINCENT, when they first allowed a cultivation to grow for 

 eighteen days on a culture medium and then filtered it. Fresh 

 inoculation of this culture medium was fruitless, but by adding 

 a certain amount of fresh nutrient liquid, a new growth of very 

 active toxines was obtained. VAILLARD subsequently employed 

 a slightly alkaline bouillon containing some peptone ; KITASATO 

 recommended that the culture medium should be freshly prepared 

 on each occasion. FERMI and PERNOSSI G found that agar 

 cultivations were the most poisonous, especially so when grown 

 in an atmosphere of nitrogen. 



BRIEGER and COHN 7 found that the toxicity of the cultivations 

 could be raised by adding to the culture media precipitates 

 obtained by means of alcohol from old typhus cultivations or 



1 Kitasato and Weyl, "Zur Kenntnis der Anaerobien," Zeit. f. Hyg., 

 viii., 404, 1890. 



2 Faber, "Die Pathogenese des Tetanus," Berl. Uin. Woch., 1890, 717. 



3 Tizzoni and Cattani, "Sur le poison du tetanos," Arch. Ital. d. Biol., 

 xiv., 101, 1890. 



4 Kitasato, "Exper. Unters. iiber das Tetanusgift," Zeit. f. Hyg., x., 

 287, 1891. 



5 Vaillard, " Sur 1'immunite contre le t6tanos," Soc. Biol., xliii., 147, 

 1891 ; Vaillard and Vincent, " Contrib. a 1'gtude du tgtanos," Ann. Past., 

 v., 1, 1891 ; Vaillard and Rouget, do., ibid., 385 ; Vaillard, " Sur quelques 

 points concernant 1'immunite contre le te'tanos," Ann. Past., vi., 224, 1892. 



6 Fermi and Pernossi, "Ueber das Tetanusgift," Zeit. f. Hyg., xvi., 

 385, 1894. 



7 Brieger and Cohn, "Unters. iib. d. Tetanusgift," Zeit.f. Hyg., xv., 1, 

 1893. 



