356 BACTERIAL POISONS. 



albumin is sometimes absorbed and produces marked dis- 

 turbances. A boy, after eating sixteen raw eggs, had a 

 high fever accompanied by the appearance of both albumin 

 and haemoglobin in the urine. 



BRIEGER obtained by digesting fibrin with gastric juice 

 a substance which gives reactions with many of the general 

 alkaloidal reagents and to which he has given the name 

 " peptotoxine." A few drops of a dilute aqueous solution 

 of this substance sufficed to kill frogs within fifteen min- 

 utes. The frogs became apparently paralyzed and did not 

 respond to stimuli. Slight tremor was perceptible in the 

 muscles of the extremities. Rabbits of about one kilo- 

 gramme weight were given from 0.5 to 1 gramme of the 

 extract subcutaneously. About fifteen minutes after the 

 injection, paralysis beginning in the posterior extremities 

 set in ; the animal fell into a somnolent condition, sank 

 and died. In some rabbits several hours elapsed before 

 the above-mentioned symptoms appeared. 



Peptotoxine was found by BRIEGER to be formed not 

 only by the digestive juice, but to be among the first 

 putrefactive products of proteids, as fibrin, casein, brain 

 substance, liver, and muscle. 



It is highly probable that many of the nervous symptoms 

 which accompany some forms of dyspepsia are due to the 

 formation and absorption of poisonous substances. 



In some persons the tendency to the formation of poisons 

 out of certain foods is very marked. Thus, there are some 

 to whom the smallest bit of egg is highly poisonous ; with 

 others, milk will not agree ; and instances of this kind are 

 sufficiently numerous to give rise to the adage, " What is 

 one man's meat is another man's poison." 



BRUNTON is of the opinion that the condition which we 

 term " biliousness," and which is most likely to exist in 

 those who eat largely of proteids, is due to the formation 

 of poisonous alkaloids ; but of this we have no positive 

 proof. 



Whether or not the unorganized digestive ferments ever 

 find their way into the blood in quantity sufficient to cause 

 deviations from health, we are not in a position to state 



