THE IDENTITY OP ANTITOXIN. 657 



also possess this characteristic of peptones, of being both albu- 

 minoid and basic, and, as such, belong to the family of com- 

 plex leucomaines produced by animals. Peptones and toxalbu- 

 mins constitute the subclass of proteid leucomaines. 



"It is not only in the products of gastric and intestinal 

 digestion that peptones are met with. Many are to be found 

 in animal and vegetable cells, particularly in white corpuscles, 

 the lymphatic corpuscles that migrate from vessels, in em- 

 bryonic cells; in glands and in some instances (purulent foci, 

 nervous diseases) in the blood and urine; finally, in venoms. 

 Many microbes owe their toxicity to the peptones they secrete. 



"It is very probable that the peptonization of albuminoids 

 produced in many cells of the economy, is due to the presence 

 in these of a certain quantity of pepsin or analogous ferments 

 (papain, pancreatin, etc.): -substances that have been observed, 

 outside of the gastric and intestinal glands, in the lymphatics 

 and in normal urine, for example. 



"(1) Toxalbumins: Toxins. Many normal tissues, treated 

 with cold water, or, better, with an aqueous salt (7 or 8 per 

 1000) solution, furnish extracts which, deprived of their crys- 

 tallizable bodies by dialysis, are extremely toxic: such, for in- 

 stance, are the extracts of spleen and especially of liver. A 

 dose of such an extract corresponding to 15 or 20 grammes of 

 hepatic tissue produces, in animals, extreme lassitude with con- 

 traction of the pupil; after one to two hours they are taken 

 with diarrhoea and die in prostration (Eoger). Aqueous extract 

 of kidney, prepared cold, causes pyrexia (Lepine). This tox- 

 icity seems to be especially due to certain soluble specific albu- 

 minoid substances, comparable to that of venoms, since, when 

 heated to 100 C., the extracts lose the greater part of their 

 toxicity. 



"The production of albuminoid venoms by animals and 

 plants is now an established fact. It was in 1883 that Weir 

 Mitchell and T. Reichert observed that the venom of snakes 

 particularly that of the rattlesnake and of the moccasin con- 

 tained three specific albuminoid substances: a venopeptone, a 

 venoglobulin, and a venoalbumin. The two former are alone 

 venomous. They also observed (a feature which I had noted 

 a year before in connection with cobra-venom) that a tempera- 



