TOXIN AND ANTITOXIN 541 



lying my views no better than he did two years ago. At that time 

 Paltauf 1 tried in vain to make this elementary consequence of the 

 side-chain theory comprehensible to him. 



Gruber's sixth conclusion is as follows: 



6. " The specific antibodies are not normal body constituents. 

 They are newly formed only after the introduction of foreign sub- 

 stances. This new formation has the character of an internal secre- 

 tion." 



So far as the first point is concerned one cannot help being amazed 

 at the lack of literary knowledge which permits an author to make 

 such statements. 1 need only refer to the studies of Pfeiffer, Bordet, 

 Flexner, Kraus, Bail, Peterssen, etc., or to the comprehensive resume 

 by M. Neisser 2 concerning the antibodies found in normal serum, 

 The literature on normal antibodies of various kinds is very large, 

 and yet has been entirely ignored by Gruber. Thus amboceptors 

 against different bacteria (cholera, typhoid, anthrax), antiambo- 

 ceptors, anticomplements, antitoxins, antiterments, etc., have been 

 observed. I shall, however, mention merely a few points which 

 may be of special interest. 



i. The very frequent occurrence of diphtheria antitoxin in horses 

 (Meade, Roux, Bolton, Cobbett). In view of the high percentage 

 of this occurrence, the attempts to ascribe this antitoxin in normal 

 horse serum to a diphtheria running a latent course must be regarded 

 as failures. Since this phenomenon has been observed in about 

 30% of the horses, it is surely not reasonable to assume that an 

 occurrence of diphtheria in horses should so frequently have entirely 

 escaped the large number of excellent observers representing animal 

 pathology. Such a frequency of the disease should, of course, also 

 have manifested itself epidemiologically. The fact that in one single 

 instance Cobbett observed a diphtheritic infection in a horse cer- 

 tainly does not alter the circumstances. 



ii. I must mention the interesting observations made by v. Dun- 

 gern 3 that normal rabbit serum contains an antibody against that 

 substance in star-fish eggs which is toxic for sea-urchin spermatozoa. 

 I am sure that no one, just to please Gruber, will assume that there 

 is any connection between rabbits and star-fish and their eggs 



in. Laveran has found that the blood of healthy human beings 



1 Wiener klm. Wochenscbr. 1901, No. 49. 



2 Deutsche med. Wochenschr. 1900. 



3 Zeitschr. f. allgemeine Physiologic, Vol. 1, 1901. 



