302 INFECTION AND IMMUNITY. 



tissue alone causes albuminuria. a consideration 

 which led them to assume that the placentar cells 

 contain a nephrotoxic substance. Inasmuch as 

 placentar cells or their constituents may reach the 

 circulation during eclampsia (Schmorl) it was 

 not a long step to suppose that the nephritis of 

 pregnancy is due to the toxic syncytial cells which 

 are absorbed. The results which Weichardt re- 

 ported gave some strength to the view just cited. 

 By treating placentar tissue of rabbits with the 

 specific cyncytiolysin the toxin supposedly was lib- 

 erated, and the mass when injected into normal 

 rabbits is said to have produced symptoms of an 

 eclamptic nature. On the basis of these observa- 

 tions the hope has been expressed that an anti- 

 toxin for eclampsia might be prepared by immun- 

 ization with placentar tissue. However, the con- 

 ditions are by no means simple; any value which 

 the destruction of circulating syncytial cells or 

 their toxin would afford might be more than offset 

 by the action of the hemotoxin and neurotoxin 

 which the serum is said to contain. Whether or 

 not the hypothetical toxin of syncytial cells may 

 be separated from the other cell constituents, and 

 whether immunization with the toxin will yield 

 an antitoxic serum are possibilities which remain 

 for further investigation; the results cited have 

 not been obtained by all observers. 



Liepmann hopes for a serum-diagnosis of preg- 

 nancy. If, as supposed, the blood of a pregnant 

 woman contains syncitial cells or their products 

 of degeneration, the serum when mixed with 

 a specific syncytiolysin may cause a precipitate. 

 He claims to have demonstrated the presence of 



