574 



NA TURE 



[April i6, 1896 



Dybowski in 1 880; but some of them must be considered as 

 new varieties, or as new species of the same genus. Thus the 

 author describes and figures the new varieties : Lubomirskia 

 baicalensis. Pall., var. e, and Lubomirskia intermedia, Dyb., 

 var. ;8, and the new species, L. Tcherskii and L. ftisifera. 

 The paper is fully summed up in French. The same number 

 contains a note on Polyzonitun germaniciim, Brandt, by M. 

 Rimsky Korsakoff; a paper, by W. Schimkevitch, on some new 

 species and varieties of Pantopoda from the Arctic Ocean 

 (Barents's Sea), in which the new forms Ammothea borea/is, 

 Nympho7i rubriiin, var. iniermedititii, Nyphon grossipes, var. 

 armattim, Tanystyhim hcckiamim, Phoxihiltis bcchiiiii, are 

 described and figured. The author also gives the plates which 

 are intended to show that the two species, Phoxihiltis vulgaris 

 and Ph. charyhdcens, are different. M. Eugene Schultz 

 <iescribes the new species Loxosoma hartneri ; and A. 

 Yaschenko gives a catalogue of the fishes in the museum of the 

 St. Petersburg University. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, February 27. — "A Method for rapidly pro- 

 ducing Diphtheria Antitoxines." Preliminary note. By Dr. 

 G. E. Cartwright Wood. 



In this preliminary communication^ a method was de- 

 scribed by means of which, firstly, an animal can be 

 rendered immune towards large quantities of diphtheria poison ; 

 secondly, such animals can be made to produce powerful 

 diphtheria antitoxines. The distinctive feature of the method 

 consists in the use of the products produced by the growth of 

 the diphtheria bacillus in albuminous fluids made by the ad- 

 dition of serum to ordinary peptone broth. This fluid is, after 

 three or four weeks' growth at 37° C. , filtered through a Chamber- 

 land candle and heated for an hour at 65° C. This liquid, which 

 is described as "serum" toxine, probably depends for its action 

 on the presence of the diphtheria albumoses described by Sidney 

 Martin. It gives rise on injection to little or no local reaction, 

 but to a marked rise of temperature, which is still more pro- 

 nounced when the injection is repeated. The ordinary toxine 

 obtained by the growth of the diphtheria bacillus in fresh peptone 

 broth, or in putrid broth (Spronck's method), was also made use 

 of, and this is referred to in the paper as " broth " toxine. 



In the first experiment (Horse No. i) 380 c.c. of serum toxine 

 was injected during the first fourteen days for the purpose of 

 immunising the animal, and thus protecting it against the sub- 

 sequent introduction of the much more irritating and deadly 

 broth toxine. During the next fortnight it then received 310 c.c. 

 of broth toxine in three injections without being markedly 

 affected, and was then bled at the end of this period. The anti- 

 toxic value of the serum was then found to be ten normal units, 

 i-iooth of a c.c. protecting against ten lethal doses of broth 

 toxine, a result obtained by the ordinary method only after ten 

 weeks treatment. 



In the second experiment (Horse No. 2), the animal received 

 1350C.C. of serum toxine mixed with 51 c.c. of antitoxine during 

 the first fortnight. During the next two weeks it received 

 950 c.c. of broth toxine mixed with 350 c.c. of serum toxine. 

 When the animal was bled at the end of a month, i/ioooth c.c. 

 was found to protect a guinea-pig against ten lethal doses of 

 broth toxine. 



In the third experiment (Horse No. 3), the horse received the 

 serum toxine without the addition of antitoxine, and, as will 

 be seen from the following table, the results were even more 

 striking. 



Antitoxic 



value of Amount of toxines injected, 



serum. 

 7th day ... xffTs c.c. ... 1200 c.c. serum toxine. 



14th day ... -^^^ycc. ... 980 c.c. serum toxine. 



2ist day ... 53-irC.c. ... 650 c.c. serum toxine and 1050c. c. 

 weak broth toxine. 



28th day ... xirVo-cc... 1 100 c.c. serum toxine and 1200 c.c. 

 stronger broth toxine. 



The high antitoxic value of the serum obtained from horses 

 Nos. 2 and 3 suggested that the serum toxine might be made 



1 The investigation has been carried out in the laboratories of the Royal 

 Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and I should like here to express my 

 great indebtedness to the Laboratories Committee for the facilities there 

 afforded to me. I must also thank, them and, through them, the Honourable 

 Goldsmiths' Company, from whose Research Fund a grant was placed at my 

 isposal.— G. E. C. W. 



Amounts of toxines 



injected during the 



16 days. 



NO. I 38 I, VOL. 53] 



use of at a later stage, as well as for the purpose of rapidly 

 immunising the animals. When mixed with the ordinary toxine, 

 and injected as usual, although the results obtained were better, 

 they were not so striking as one might have expected. On 

 examining more in detail the protocols of the horses in which 

 the best results had been obtained, it was observed that these 

 had been under more or less continuous treatment with the 

 toxines, both toxines being injected in as large amounts, and as 

 frequently as possible, so that the animal was kept in a chronic 

 condition of local and constitutional reaction. For the purpose 

 of determining whether the favourable result was due to this 

 " cumulative" action of the toxines, four horses, which had been 

 under the ordinary treatment for periods varying from nine 

 months to a year, were treated in the following way. They 

 received one evening each 300 c.c. of serum toxine prepared by 

 Spronck's method, and on the following morning an injection of 

 weak broth toxine, the latter being usually repeated daily during 

 the rest of the week. This treatment was continued during the 

 following week, and the serum then tested for its antitoxic value. 

 The results are seen in the following table. 



Strength of Strength of 

 serum serum after 



tbefore 16 days' 



treatment. ' treatment. 

 Horse No. 4 ... ^^-^ c.c. ... ^^Vtf c.c ... 650 c.c. serum toxine 



and 2350 c.c. weak 

 broth toxine. 

 Horse No. 5 ... ^Jo c.c. ... ^^-Vu c.c. ... 600 c.c. .serum toxine 



and 1800 c.c. weak 

 broth toxine. 

 Horse No. 6 ... ^jj^cc. ... ^ri^cc. ... 650 c.c. serum toxine 



and 2350 c.c. weak 

 broth toxine. 

 Horse No. 7 ... '^^^ c.c. ... ^.i^ c.c. ... 650 c.c. serum toxine 



and 2350 c.c. weak 

 broth toxine. 



These results indicate clearly that the rapid productions of 

 anti-toxine depended on the increased sensitiveness of the animal, 

 owing to the injections being repeated before the previous ones 

 had had time to pass oft". Some preliminary experiments have 

 indicated that this cumulative action may be produced in an even 

 more marked degree by the use of other toxines than those 

 produced by the diphtheria bacillus. 



It is claimed for this method that powerful diphtheria anti- 

 toxines can be easily produced in a shorter space of time than 

 has hitherto been possible, and that, as a consequence, the 

 amount of serum necessary to be injected is greatly reduced, 

 while its greater strength will permit of the patient receiving at 

 the beginning of treatment a sufficient quantity of the serum at 

 one injection, when, as is universally recognised both by animal 

 experiment and clinical experience, its curative action is exerted 

 most markedly. 



March 19. — " On the Relations of Turacin and Turacopor- 

 phyrin to the Colouring Matter of the Blood." By Prof. Arthur 

 Gamgee, F.R.S. 



In a recent paper read before the Royal Society, the author 

 has shown that the intense absorption band in the extreme 

 violet, which is observed in the spectrum of highly diluted 

 solutions of haemoglobin and its compounds, is (with slight 

 changes in its position) exhibited by certain of the derivatives 

 of the blood colouring matter, e.g. by hsemochromogen and the 

 compounds of haematin, and by that remarkably interesting 

 coloured but iron-free derivative of the latter body, haematopor- 

 phyrin. 



Having found that no organic body which he had examined 

 exhibits an absorption band occupying the position, or " 



of the remarkable intensity, of the extreme violet band under 

 discussion, it seemed as if the latter owed its origin to a group 

 of atoms existing in, and perhaps characteristic of, the blood 

 colouring matter, which group remains intact in certain of the 

 products of decomposition of the complex haemoglobin molecule, 

 whereas it does not exist in certain other of the derivatives of 

 the haemochromogen or haematin moiety of the molecule, such 

 as bilirubin and urobilin. It appeared interesting to determine 

 whether turacin, which, as Prof. Church first showed in 1869,' 

 presents two absorption bands in the visible spectrum, which 

 have a remarkable resemblance to those of oxy-haemoglobin, 



1 A. H. Church, " Researches on Turacin, an Animal Pigment containipi 

 Copper," Koy. Soc, Proc, vol. xvii. (1869) p. 436 ; Phil. Trans., vol. clix" 

 (1869) pp. 627-636. 



