TOXONS. 195 



tic. Injection was followed by some local edema, TOXOH. 

 then by a long incubation period, and finally by 

 cachexia and paralysis. On account of this char- 

 acteristic toxic action and the long incubation 

 period, Ehrlich has concluded that the so-called 

 epitoxoid is in reality a second toxin which is se- 

 creted by the diphtheria bacillus. This he now 

 designates as toxon in order to distinguish it from 

 that other constituent of diphtheria bouillon, the 

 toxin, which causes the acute phenomena of diph- 

 theria. 



The existence or non-existence of toxons has created 

 a great deal of discussion among investigators. The 

 Swedish chemist, Arrhenius, has recently attempted to 

 apply certain principles of physical chemistry to the 

 study of toxins and antitoxins. It is a well-known fact 

 that some chemical substances, when in solution, have 

 the power of breaking up into their constituent parts; 

 thus sodium chlorid breaks up in part into sodium and 

 chlorin, as sodium or chlorin ions or electrolytes. The 

 dissociated sodium or chlorin may then enter into com- 

 bination with any other suitable substances which may 

 be present. Arrhenius holds that this is the case with 

 the toxin-antitoxin molecule, that it may to a certain 

 extent again break up into separate toxin and antitoxin. 

 He believes that this dissociated toxin is the substance 

 which Ehrlich has been calling toxon. Madsen, who 

 formerly had done much work with toxons, has now 

 joined with Arrhenius in support of the dissociation 

 theory. Bordet believes that toxon and the various 

 other constituents of toxin described by Ehrlich as 

 separate substances, are the result of combinations of 

 varying proportions of toxin and antitoxin. He pro- 

 duced comparable phenomena by mixtures of complement 

 and anticomplement in varying proportions and noting 

 the degree of hemolysis produced on sensitized corpus- 

 cles. In spite of the reasonableness of this theory, Ehr- 



