INFECTION AND IMMUNITY. 429 



Similar germicidal, ferment-like globulins have been 

 isolated from the blood by Ogata, 1 and in their studies 

 upon tetanus, Tizzoni and Cattani 2 found a body that 

 was antagonistic to the poison produced by the organism 

 of this disease. 



According to the observations of Vaughan, 3 the most 

 important germicidal or protective agents possessed by 

 the body are the nucleins. 



Hankiu believes the globulins or " defensive pro- 

 teids" that he has discovered and the albuminoid 

 bodies studied by Buchner to be identical. The most 

 interesting and, in the light of work that has appeared 

 since, the most important, of Hankin's observations were 

 not those upon the power of these globulins to destroy 

 the vitality of living organisms, but rather those upon 

 the relation between them and the poisonous proteid 

 products of the organisms. For example, if the poison- 

 ous products of virulent anthrax bacilli be isolated and 

 mixed with the globulin extracted from normal tissues, 

 the experiments of Hankin showed a directly destruc- 

 tive action on the part of the bacterial products. He 

 found that the amount of poisonous albumose produced 

 by the attenuated anthrax bacilli, that are employed as 

 vaccines, was much less than that produced by the organ- 

 isms possessing full virulence, and he suggests that per- 

 haps the protective influence of vaccinations that are 

 practised by introducing into the animal the organisms 

 that have been attenuated in virulence, is due to a 

 gradual tolerance acquired by the cells of the tissues to 

 the action of the poison when produced in these small 



1 Centr. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenkunde, 1891, vol ix., p. 599. 



2 Ibid., p. 685 



Vaughan : Medical News, 1893, May 20. 

 19* 



