Cytotoxic Serums 101 



a guinea-pig into the peritoneum of another, the spermo- 

 toxic serum produced was solvent for the spermatozoa of 

 both. Both Metschnikoff and Metalnikoff also found that 

 the spermo toxin when introduced into animals was active 

 in producing anti-spermotoxin by which the destructive 

 action of the serum upon spermatozoa could be inhibited. 



Metschnikoff* and Funckf found that animals treated with 

 emulsions of the spleen, and mesenteric lymph nodes of one 

 kind of animal, produced sera whose action was agglutinative 

 and solvent for leukocytes and lymph cells. Delezenel 

 found that dissociated liver cells injected into animals 

 similarly caused the formation of a cytotoxic serum whose 

 specific destructive action was upon them. 



All of these reactions are indirect and intermediate, and 

 take place under appropriate conditions both in the bodies 

 of animals and in the test-tube. 



But the number of reactions that can be brought about by 

 physiologically and chemically active bodies introduced into 

 the bodies of animals seems to be limitless, for Khrlich and 

 Morgenroth in their studies of hemolysis found that serums 

 rich in "complement" produced reactions productive of 

 anti-complements, and that serums rich in immune bodies, 

 produced similar reactions yielding anti-immune bodies, and 

 that these serums inhibited the activities of the respective 

 factors by whose stimulation they were produced. 



During the activity of these investigations, prompted by 

 the results obtained in studying the infectious diseases, the 

 bacteria were at no time forgotten, and as promptly as a new 

 fact was determined, it was utilized to make clear some of the 

 ^obscure problems of infection and immunity against infection. 



The observation that bacteria subjected to the action of 

 blood- serum in a test-tube were diminished in virulence or 

 killed, made as early as 1884 by Grohman, von Fodor, || 

 carefully studied by Nuttall,** and referred by Buchnerff 



* " Ann. de 1'Inst. Pasteur," 1899. 



t" Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., xxvn, 1900. 



f'Compte rendu de. 1'Acad, des Sciences," 1900, cxxx, pp. 938, 

 1488. 



" Untersuchungen aus dem physiol. Institut zu Dorpat," Dorpat, 

 1884, Kriiger. 



|| " Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., 1890, vn, p. 753. 



** " Zeitschrift fur Hygiene," 1888, iv, p. 353. 



tt " Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., v, p. 817; vi, p. i;561; xii, No. 24; 

 " Berliner klin. Wochenschrift," 1892, p. 449;" Miinchener med. Wcchen- 

 schrift," 1892, Nos. 8 and 52; 1894, Nos. 24 and 25, pp. 717 and 744. 



