258 Wound Infection; Suppuration 



Van de Velde * found that the staphylococcus has some 

 metabolic products destructive to the leukocytes, which 

 he has called leukocidin. This poison causes the cells to 

 cease ameboid movement, become spheric, and gradually 

 to lose thin granules, until they finally appear like empty 

 sacs containing shadow nuclei, which eventually disappear. 

 The leukolysis occurs in about two minutes. These ob- 

 servations have been abundantly confirmed. Krauss | 

 first observed that certain products of the staphylococcus 

 were hemolytic and destroyed red blood-corpuscles. This 

 hemolysin has been carefully studied by Neisser and Wechs- 

 berg,t by whom it was called staphylolysin. 



Durme found staphylolysin produced most abundantly 

 by virulent staphylococci. 



Simon || found that the toxic quality of the bodies of 

 streptococci of different stocks had nothing to do with their 

 virulence. Simon** also found that the toxic products of 

 the streptococcus were diverse and peculiar. The bodies 

 of the cocci contained an intracellular toxin the activity of 

 which was independent of their virulence. This poison is 

 liberated only when the bactericidal activities of the body 

 act upon the cocci. The cocci also excrete a toxic substance 

 whose activity is greater than that of the intracellular toxin, 

 but whose production is subject to great variation and is 

 entirely independent of the intracellular toxin. The toxins 

 and hemolysins are entirely different bodies. 



Ribbertft found that both sterilized and unsterilized 

 cultures when intravenously injected into animals produced 

 definite changes in the heart, kidneys, lungs, spleen, and 

 bone-marrow, and attributed the action to the toxin. 



Morse {{ found that the toxic products of Staphylococcus 

 aureus were capable of occasioning interstitial nephritis. 



The staphylococci form very little extracellular toxin, as 



*"La Cellule," xi, 1896, p. 349. 



t" Wiener klin. \Vochenschrift," 1900. 



J " Zeitschrift fur Hygiene," 1901, xxxvi, p. 330. 



"Hyg. Rundschau," 1903, Heft 2, p. 66. 



|| " Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., xxxv, No. 3, p. 308, Dec. 18, 1903. 

 **"Centralbl.," Jan. 16, 1904, xxxv, No. 4, p. 350. 

 ft "Di e pathologische Anatomic und die Heilung der durch den 

 Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus hervorgerufenen Erkrankungen." 

 it" Journal of Experimental Medicine," vol. I, 1896, p. 613. 



