THE COMPOSITION OP ANTITOXIN. 



665 



THE COMPOSITION OF ANTITOXIN. 



A review of the data submitted shows that phagocytosis has 

 fully merited the recognition it has received. This is due 

 mainly to the labors of Metchnikoff, who propounded the doc- 

 trine and whose views have been sustained by the investigations 

 of other observers. It has also proven itself unassailable by, 

 and eminently in keeping with, the views submitted in the 

 present volume. The mobile phagocytes in the blood-plasma 

 and the fixed phagocytes i.e., the endothelial, hepatic-stellate, 

 connective-tissue, bone-marrow, lymphatic, and splenic-pulp 

 cells, etc. unitedly constitute a protective system through 

 which all the living structures of the organism are primarily 

 protected. Phagocytes incorporate not only dead, but living, 

 bacteria, and are able to destroy them. They thus prevent 

 their pullulation and the production of toxins. The analysis 

 has also shown: 



That alexins, the presence of which in the body-fluids has 

 been shown through the labors of Hankin, Buchner, and other 

 observers, are likewise bactericidal and constitute active proph- 

 lactic agencies has also been sustained herein. Alexins are 

 secreted by leucocytes, and the bactericidal activity of the 

 blood-serum corresponds with the number of leucocytes present 

 in it. Their destructive power varies according to the micro- 

 organism present, though all are more or less weakened by 

 them. They also act, according to Buchner, as histolytic en- 

 zymes, capable of softening or even causing dissolution of mor- 

 bid histogenetic elements, abscesses, tubercles, etc. 



That trypsin, to which we attribute the main prophylactic 

 function, {.., that of a proteolytic ferment capable of reduc- 

 ing bacterial toxins, toxalbumins, vegetable poisons, and ven- 

 oms to benign products, is, in reality, endowed with these 

 functions, seems to us as fully sustained by the analysis to which 

 we have submitted this question. Its specific action upon albu- 

 minoids has been experimentally demonstrated, while the 

 identity of the above pathogenic bodies as albuminoids is as 

 conclusively established. 



That the oxidizing substance, to which we attribute the 

 prophylactic function of destroying by oxidation all toxic agen- 



