90 IMMUNITY AND ANAPHYLAXIS 



inconvenience of giving grand illusions with a precision which 

 does not exist. 



Confusion and misunderstandings result in the vast 

 majority of cases from the forced use of inaccurate terms 

 which are necessary in order to visualize reactions between 

 substances of which only a few biological properties are 

 known. 



And the differences which we have desired to establish 

 in the nature of the reactions of anaphylactic shock and 

 of chronic anaphylaxis (Arthus phenomenon) between the 

 guinea-pig, rabbit, goat, horse or rat, and even between 

 French and American guinea-pigs could arise only from 

 the fact that up to the present we have had only a general 

 idea of the interpretation of various observed phenomena, 

 clinical or experimental. 



But although the words, "anaphylaxis," "taraxis," 

 "apo- or anaphylatoxins" or "taraxins" are not important, 

 the distinctive characters of shock as well as of crises of 

 longer duration and other delayed reactions of a different 

 nature are defined as much by the pathogenicity as by the 

 symptoms. 



To define a phenomenon, it is not sufficient to indicate 

 the process by which it is produced: We ought to know of 

 what it consists; in other words, its symptoms, the methods 

 by which these symptoms are produced and particularly the 

 properties of the elements which combine to produce them. 



But if we do not know all the properties of all the anti- 

 gens and of all the antibodies as of all their compounds, we 

 can know with certainty that the anaphylactic state can be 

 produced only by antigens which form with their antibodies 

 insoluble compounds. We have seen that there is no ana- 

 phylaxis for toxins which form with their antitoxins soluble 

 compounds, and that there is always anaphylaxis for albu- 

 mins, bacteria and their broth cultures which provoke the 

 formation of precipitates. 



The most convenient theory which could best explain the 

 total of actually known facts would show that the anaphy- 

 lactic crisis is a brisk reaction of coagulation caused by the 

 union in the organism of a certain dose of antigen with a 



