82 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 



the body-cells or bactericidal body-juices to properly cope 

 with them, so that they develop and engender the poison- 

 ous substances which are the essential factors of disease- 

 production. The more the body and its component ele- 

 ments are injured, the more successful the inroads of the 

 bacteria, the more prolific the toxin-production, and the 

 more severe the affection. 



The presence of the antitoxin annuls the poison, main- 

 tains the vitality of the organism as a whole, sustains 

 the integrity of its tissues, and so places the pathogenic 

 bacterium on a very different footing in relation to the 

 organism. 



An antitoxin is a neutralizing or annulling agent, not 

 a regenerating one, and therefore in therapeutics finds 

 its proper sphere only in the beginning of the disease 

 combated. Up to a certain point the symptoms of diph- 

 theria and tetanus are due to the circulation of toxins in 

 the blood, and can be successfully combated by antitoxic 

 neutralization. Later in both diseases we have symp- 

 toms resulting from disorganization of the nervous sys- 

 tem, degeneration of the heart-muscle, destruction of the 

 kidneys, etc., and the neutralization of the poison can be 

 of no avail because the lesions are irreparable, and the 

 patient must succumb. 



I have used the term lc neutralization," in speaking of 

 the antitoxins, in a rather free and scarcely warranted 

 manner, and must call attention to the fact that their 

 operation is probably not exactly analogous to chemical 

 neutralization. From mixtures of toxin and antitoxin 

 the unchanged poison has been recovered. The effect of 

 an antitoxin may be a biologic one, by which the tissues 

 are so stimulated as to endue the action of a substance 

 ordinarily disorganizing in effect. 



Ruchncr and Roux have both pointed out that when the 

 t<>xins and antitoxins are mixed and introduced into ani- 

 mals of greater susceptibility than are ordinarily used, the 

 presence of an unaltered toxin can easily be demonstrated. 



This proof is, however, of very little value, for let the 



