ACTION OF ANTITOXINS ON TOXINS. 275 



it to other corpuscles even when they are strongly sensitized. This 

 justifies the preceding remarks as to the varying stability of com- 

 plexes obtained.* 



It is evident that for these reasons and from these experiments 

 we believe in the hypothesis of a combination in variable propor- 

 tions. It is well, however, to verify this hypothesis in its more 

 important bearings. 



Two different standpoints may be assumed in determining the 

 toxicity of any poisonous substance. In the first place an estima- 

 tion of the strength of a poison may be made by determining how 

 many cells or what weight of animal it will destroy. On the other 

 hand, the toxicity in relation to the time necessary to accomplish 

 a given result may be determined. 



In considering a mixture of alexin and anti-alexin, let us mix 

 0.3 of a cubic centimeter of anti-alexin with 1.2 c.c. of alexin 

 (guinea-pig). This 1.5 c.c. of fluid (A) contains, according to our 

 hypothesis, only attenuated alexin, and only slightly attenuated at 

 that, as the dose of anti-alexin is small. In other words, the anti- 

 alexin has not neutralized part of the alexin and left the rest un- 

 altered. We have then to deal, not with a simple quantitative 

 diminution of the alexin, but with a complex that, as a whole, is 

 less toxic, in that it hemolyzes even a small dose of corpuscles 

 remarkably slowly. 



Since all the alexin has been transformed, but none of it, properly 

 speaking, destroyed, and since we are dealing, not with a quantita- 

 tive diminution, but with a modification of the totality of alexin, 

 it is conceivable how the mixture can destroy a relatively consider- 

 able amount of red blood cells, although the hemolysis may be slow. 



* An idea of Morgenroth's phenomenon may be gained from a certain staining 

 phenomenon that would appear in a rough way to be suggestively analogous. 

 We place about half of a strip of filter paper at the bottom of a crystallizing dish 

 and pour over it a little solution of methylene blue. In a short time the paper 

 removes all the color from the fluid. We then take two more bits of filter paper and 

 place one of them (A) at the bottom of the dish and the other (B) very near the 

 original strip that has been lying in the solution and that has absorbed the blue. 

 Care is taken that B does not actually touch the original paper. B soon becomes 

 more colored than A. The first strip is decolorized at the point nearest to B. 

 The distribution of color between this original strip and B tends to homogeneity, 

 as does the sensitizer in Morgenroth's experiment tend to be equally shared by 

 all the cells present. 



