122 TOXINES AND ANTITOXINES. 



there is absolutely no need for us to assume the existence of a 

 new poison without affinity for the antitoxine. Nor can the 

 theory derive any greater support from the fact that the brain 

 of animals that have died of tetanus can still combine with the 

 poison. 



But if these considerations do not altogether explain the want 

 of influence of the antitoxine upon the toxine after the lapse of 

 a certain time, the discovery by MEYER and RANSOM (loc. cit.) 

 of the fact that tetanus antitoxine cannot follow the poison in its 

 passage along the nerve tracks affords all that is still needed in 

 explanation of this phenomenon. This fully accounts for the 

 want of activity of the antitoxine, and there is no longer any 

 need to call to our aid the hypothesis of a secondary poison. 

 This hypothesis has not, however, as yet been thereby definitely 

 disproved. 



An experimental proof brought forward by COURMONT and 

 DOYON in support of their view was the fact that the transfu- 

 sion of blood from a dog suffering from tetanus into another 

 immediately produced symptoms of tetanus in the latter. KRAUS/ 

 too, succeeded in rapidly poisoning other mice with the blood 

 serum from a mouse infected with tetanus, as had previously 

 been done by Nissen. 2 Here then, in their opinion, there 

 was manifested the activity of the secondary poison. It was 

 next claimed that this poison had been detected in animal 

 organs. 



BLUMENTHAL S prepared from the organs of an animal that 

 had died of tetanus, a poison which, in a dose of 0*35 c.c., caused 

 death with tetanic symptoms in seventeen minutes without an 

 incubation period, and was not rendered ineffective by the 

 antitoxine. BUSCHKE and OERGEL* have also succeeded in 

 preparing a poison that acted instantaneously from the liver, 

 spleen, and spinal cord of an animal that had died of tetanus, 

 whilst TAUBER 5 obtained a similar preparation in smaller quan- 

 tity from the spinal cord, brain, and liver. Such reputed dis- 



1 Kraus, "Beitrasr zur Klinik des Tetanus," Z. f. klin. Med., xxxvii., 

 247, 1899. 



' 2 Nissen, " Ueb. den Nachweis von Toxin im Blut, &c.," Deutsch. med. 

 Woch., 1891, 775. 



3 Blumenthal, "Weit. Beitr. z. Kenntn. des Tetanusgiftes," Z. f. klin. 

 Med., xxxii., 325, 1897; Id., "Ueber die Veranderungen des T.-G. im 

 Tierkorper," Deutsch. med. Woch., 1893, 149. 



4 Buschke and Oergel, "Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Tetanus," Deutsch. 

 med. Woch., 1893, 149. 



5 Tauber, "Bin Beitr. z. Kenntnis d. Tetanus," Wien. klin. Woch., 

 1898, 747. 



