ANTISTAPHYLOLYSINE. 141 



Normal horse serum also frequently affords protection against tetano- 

 lysine. From this KRAUS and CIAIRMONT have drawn conclusions as. to 

 the identity of the two lysines and their anti-bodies. NEISSER and 

 WECHSBERG, however, were able to show that, on the one hand, immune 

 sera that afforded protection against staphylolysine had no action at all 

 upon tetanolysine, and that, on the other hand, tetanus sera, which acted 

 energetically against tetanolysine, afforded under certain conditions much 

 less protection than normal serum against staphylolysine. 



Staphylolysine thus shows itself to be a true toxine in so far 

 as it possesses a specific anti-body, which is present even in many 

 normal sera including human serum, in varying amounts, and 

 is invariably formed whenever an animal is rendered immune 

 against the lysine. 



This is attained by subcutaneous or intravenous, but not 

 peritoneal, injection of small doses twice or thrice repeated into 

 goats or rabbits. 



A very interesting point is the protection afforded to the 

 lysine by combining with the anti-body. Although the anti- 

 body can resist temperatures up to 68 C., which speedily destroy 

 the lysine, it is not possible to eliminate the toxine f rom a normal 

 mixture by means of heat, and to leave the antitoxine free. 



All these lysines, whatever their origin, produce the same anti- 

 lysine effective against them all, so that it would seem that we 

 have here to deal with a simple haptine. The evidence is in- 

 sufficient for us to decide whether we have here products of the 

 activity of staphylococci or normal side-chains in the stricter 

 sense of the word. Yet anti-bodies of the most diverse kind 

 occur in normal serum with such relative frequency as to render 

 it probable that normal receptors may actually have an affinity 

 for the poisons in question, which in this case may have the form 

 of free amboceptors resembling the receptors of the blood- 

 corpuscles. 



The Constitution of Staphylolysine. Staphylolysine has many 

 analogies with tetanolysine in its constitution. It is not con- 

 structed on the type of Bordet and Ehrlich's hsemoly sines i.e., 

 it does not, like them, consist of two parts, the "amboceptor" 

 and the "complement" for after being heated to 56 C., at which 

 temperature it becomes inactive, it can not be rendered active 

 again either by normal serum or any other means. Nor does 

 this lysine, after being rendered inactive, still produce an anti- 

 body, as do the intermediate bodies that withstand the heat in 

 the case of the haemolysines. Its structure is thus that of the 

 simple toxine ; the haptophore and toxophore groups are attached 

 to one nucleus. As in the case of the simple toxines, the hapto- 

 phore group is able to enter into combination even in the cold, 



