5S CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF BODY AND FOOD. 
The following table, somewhat altered from Sidney Martin, 1 illustrates 
the analogy between various hydrolysing processes, proteid being in all cases 
the material acted on. 
Primary Agents. 
Ferment. 
Products. 
Albuminous. 
Nitrogenous but not 
Albuminous. 
1. Epithelial cell of gastric 
gland 
■2. Epithelial cell of pancreas 
3. Bacillus anthracis 
4. B. diphtherias 
5. Epithelial cell of snake's 
venom-gland 
Pepsin. 
Trypsin. 
None yet 
fonnd. 
Ferment not 
named. 
None yet 
found. 
Proteoses, peptone. 
Proteoses, peptone. 
Proteoses, peptone. 
Proteoses. 
Proteoses. 
Brieger's pepto- 
toxin ; a very 
doubtful basic 
substance. 
Leucine, tyrosine, 
lysine, arginine, 
aspartic acid, 
ammonia. 
Leucine, tyrosine, 
and an anthrax 
alkaloid. 
Organic acid of 
doubtful nature. 
Trace of organic 
acid. 
Calmette 2 has worked out a table of the relative toxicity of venoms, as 
Roux and Vaillard have done for tetanus toxins, based on the ratio of 
lethal dose weight, subcutaneously injected, to body weight. He found the 
toxic value to be represented by the following numbers : — 
Cobra . . . " . . . . 4,000,000 
Hoplocephalus curtus ..... 3,450,000 
Pseudechis 800,000 
Pelias berus 250,000 
Martin places the toxic power of the two Australian venoms at — 
Hoplocephalus 4,000,000 
Pseudecis 2,000,000 
This is a very high virulence ; put in another way, it means that - 00025 
gr. of the one, and 0*0005 gr. of the other poison is sufficient to kill a rabbit 
weighing a kilogramme. The virulence of snake poison much exceeds that of 
most of the poisonous proteids of zymotic diseases, though it is about the 
same as the diphtheria toxin of Roux and Yersin. 3 The following table also 
gives the toxic value of anthrax toxin, 4 and toxopeptone 5 from cholera 
cultures calculated in the same way : — 
I Hphtheria toxin .» . " . . . . 4,000,000 (about) 
Anthrax albumoses ..... 80 
Toxo-peptone ...... 3,000 
Animal Alkaloids. 
Ptomaines and leucomaines. — The word ptomaine was originally 
employed to designate those putrefactive products of animal substances which 
which are more or less 
metabolic activity, either 
give the reactions of vegetable alkaloids, and 
poisonous. The similar substances formed by 
from lecithin or proteids, 6 are called leucomaines. 
1 Published in Brit. Med. Journ., London, March 1S92. 
- Ann. de Vlnst. Pasteur. Paris, 1894, tome viii. 
:: Quoted by Sims Woodhead, " Bacteria and their Products," p. 307. 
••Sidney Martin, Rep. Med. Off. Local Gov. Bd., London, 1890-91. 
5 Petri, quoted by Vaughan and Nbvy, " Ptomaines and Leucomaines," p. 109. 
6 A discussion of the chemistry of the origin of alkaloids from proteids will 1 
in a paper by Latham, Lancet, London, 1888, vol. ii. p. 751. 
found 
