88 IMMUNITY AND ANAPHYLAXIS 



the word, "anaphylaxis" was a state of hypersensitiveness 

 in which an organism found itself as a result of a series of 

 preparatory injections of an antigen. The same antigen, 

 non- or very slightly toxic in the first injection was very 

 toxic in the second or "shock" injection and, according to 

 Richet, this toxicity resulted from the formation of a particu- 

 lar poison "apotoxin" which was formed by the combination 

 of the antigen with a hypothetical "toxogenine." 



According to Besredka there is no poison in anaphylactic 

 hypersensitiveness. He said, some years ago (1907), "In a 

 general way, the majority of the reported facts seem to 

 indicate that the formation of anaphylaxis and of anti- 

 anaphylaxis may be reduced to the actions of precipitation 

 and absorption which resist the reactions of colloids between 

 themselves." He had, as he said in a quite recent work, 1 

 "A single purpose; to contrast the idea of a physical process 

 with that of a poison determined chemically." 



Finally, after having analyzed with clarity and customary 

 ability the numerous studies of Fried berger, Neufeld and 

 Dold, Doerr and Russ, Levaditi and Mutermilch, Bordet, 

 Kraus, Nicolle, Vaughan and W 7 heeler and others and 

 selected the theories of these authors, whether chemical 

 or physical, Besredka completed his first conception by 

 saying, "What dominates anaphylaxis and anti-anaphylaxis 

 is neither poison nor antipoison but it is on the one hand 

 the rapidity with which the union of ' sensibiligen' and ' sen- 

 sibilisin' takes place and, on the other hand, the site of this 

 union which is probably the nervous system." 



The causes of the crises of anaphylactic shock are then, 

 according to Besredka, partly physical; at all events we 

 read a few lines further in the same work (page 142): 

 "What happens after the test injection? The new antigen 

 meets the sensibilisin already transformed. Their affinity 

 results in an intense reaction. Whether this reaction rup- 

 tures the equilibrium of certain nervous cells in which the 

 combination takes place or whether it is accompanied by 

 a loss or by an absorption of caloric or other energy, there 



1 Anaphylaxis et Anti-anaphylaxie, Masson et cie. ed. Paris, 1917. 



