146 TOXINES AND ANTITOXINES. 



by them to be substances having only a slight toxic action, and 

 not producing any specific effects. Their cholera toxalbumin, in 

 particular, was insoluble in water and not poisonous to rabbits. 



The first successful attempt to isolate a poisonous and approxi- 

 mately specifically active product from Koch's vibrio was made 

 by PETRi. 1 He discovered in peptone cultivations a soluble 

 poison, which killed guinea-pigs with hypothermia and other 

 symptoms of cholera poisoning, although fairly large doses 

 (2 c.c.) were required. His " toxopeptone," it is true, differed 

 widely from the true toxines in that it could resist boiling. 

 He also confirmed the far-reaching observation first made by 

 CANTANi, 2 that the cells after being killed invariably still con- 

 tained an abundance of virus, so that the filtered cultivations 

 were never as poisonous as the original sterilised cultures. 

 KLEMPERER S also found that the dead cells were still poisonous 

 and could act per os when the acidity of the stomach was 

 partially neutralised and the intestine in a state of rest. 



Next come the experiments of HuEPPE 4 and SCROLL 5 to obtain a 

 "toxine" by means of anaerobic cultivations in eggs and precipitation 

 with alcohol, but their results were contradicted by GRUBER and WIENER/ 

 WESBROOK, 7 and DoNiTZ, 8 who were unable to prepare active specific 

 poisons by these means. 



GAMALEiA 9 concluded that there were two cholera poisons. 

 He cultivated the vibriones for fifteen days in calf's-foot bouillon 

 and sterilised the culture at 120 C. The poison thus obtained 

 caused death preceded by a marked fall of temperature and 

 paralysis, as well as by hypersemia of the abdominal organs. 

 There was absolutely no acclimatisation to this poison, which 



1 Petri, "Unters. iib. die d. d. Wachstum der Cholerabakt. entstehenden 

 chemischen Umsetzungen," Arb. Kais. Ges.-Amt., vi., 374, 1890. 



2 Cantani, "Giftigkeit der Cholerabazillen," Deutsch. med. Woch., 1886, 

 789. 



3 Klemperer, "Ueb. kiinstlichen Impfsehutz gegen Choleraintoxikation," 

 Berl. Tdin. Woch., 1892, 789. 



4 Hueppe, "Ueb. d. Aetiologie u. Toxikologie der Cholera asiatica," 

 Deutsch. med. Woch., 1891, 417. 



6 Scholl, "Unters. iib. giftige Eiweisskb'rper bei Cholera asiatica," Arch, 

 f. Hyg., 1892, 172. 



6 Gruber and Wiener, "Ueb. d. intraperiton. Cholerainfektion," Wien. 

 Tdin. Woch., 1892, 543. 



7 Wesbrook, " Contrib. a 1'etude d. toxines du Cholera," Ann. Past., 

 viii., 318, 1894. 



8 Donitz, "Ueb. d. Verhalten d. Chol.-Vibr. im Huhnerei," Zeit.f. Hyg., 

 1895, 20, 31. 



9 Gamalei'a, "Recherches exper. sur les poisons du Cholera," A rch. de 

 Med. Exper., 1892, 173. 



