THE ADRENALS AND BUCHNER'S ALEXINS. 631 



disease. Diphtheria and tetanus, for example, typify a class 

 of affections in which toxins alone enter the blood, in contra- 

 distinction to cholera, typhoid fever, and other maladies in 

 which the bacteria penetrate into the circulation and there 

 develop their toxins. Snake-venom, mineral and vegetable 

 poisons, etc., represent other classes of agents in which no 

 bacilli enter the blood and which must meet therein counter- 

 acting influences. On the whole, it appears evident that there 

 must also exist some means or property in the body through 

 which the effects of the specific toxins produced by pathogenic 

 organisms, snake-venoms, and poisons of all kinds are antag- 

 onized. 



Buchner expresses the belief that the proteid-splitting 

 ferment secreted by leucocytes and that secreted by pathogenic 

 bacteria may be similar, and refers to Hahn's experiments, 19 

 which showed the presence of these ferments not only in yeast- 

 cells, but also in the typhoid and tubercle bacillus. It seems 

 evident to us that such cannot be the case. The alexins se- 

 creted by leucocytes and bacteria being similar and mutually de- 

 structive, these cellular structures would become atifodestruct- 

 ive. In other words, a leucocyte under such circumstances 

 would be creating a substance for its own destruction and so 

 would the pathogenic germ. No protective process would, 

 therefore, prevail. When germs and leucocytes would meet in 

 a given region, the interior of a capillary, for instance, all 

 structures vulnerable to the alexins or proteolytic ferment 

 leucocytes, bacteria, red corpuscles, the capillary walls, etc. 

 would be sacrificed. Indeed, Buchner accounts for the break- 

 ing down of abscesses in this manner. But it seems clear that, 

 if applicable to a limited area, the destructive process should 

 also prevail when in general affections the entire capillary sys- 

 tem is replete with leucocytes and bacteria, and that, as a result 

 also prevail when in general affections the entire capillary sys- 

 tem would also be sacrificed. Briefly, the similarity between the 

 bacterial and leucocytic alexins might stand analysis were it 

 applicable only to strictly localized morbid processes involving 

 but a very limited area, but it is inadequate when applied to 



18 Hahn: Miinchener med. Wochenschrift, Sept. 26, 1899. 



