86 ANAPHYLAXIS AND ANTI-ANAPHYLAXIS 



guinea-pigs sensitised with the typhoid bacillus 

 react to the injection of B. coli ; but he adds 

 that this is due to the fact that B. typhosus and 

 B. coli are members of the same class. It must be 

 admitted, however, that a reaction which shews 

 no distinction between the bacillus of Eberth and 

 B. coli cannot be specific. 



After these researches, Kraus^ thought it would be 

 of use to reopen the question. As a result of these 

 fresh experiments carried out in collaboration with 

 Amiradzibi, the specificity of bacterial anaphylaxis 

 has emerged more victorious than ever. These 

 workers specially noted that the specificity was not 

 only rigidly fixed for the species of bacterium, but 

 that in the same species — in the case of B. coli, for 

 example — it extended to the strain of the bacterium. 

 Guinea-pigs sensitised with a certain strain of B. coli 

 only responded anaphylactically to that strain and 

 not to any other strain of B. coli. The same was 

 found to be the case with tlie typhoid bacillus, the 

 cholera vibrio, and the dysentery bacillus of Flexner. 



Our co-worker Studzinski,^ in his turn, has sensitised 

 guinea-pigs with two strains of B. coli by carefully 

 following the technique of Kraus. He has most 

 certainly succeeded in rendering the guinea-pigs 

 hypersensitive, but he has not been able to prove 

 either the fixed specificity observed to be present in 

 the experiments of Kraus, or even the constancy of 

 the phenomenon peculiar to all true anaphylaxis. 



Another of our collaborators, Nefedoff,^ has sensi- 

 tised guinea-pigs with cholera vibrios. It is a curious 

 fact that in his experiments the anaphylactic state 

 appeared to be more marked in proportion as the 

 initial sensitising dose was stronger. Now we know 



^ Zeitschr. f. Immunitdtsf., I. Orig., iv., p. 607, 1910. 

 * Comptes rend. Soc. de Biol., Ixx., p. 173, 191 1. 

 3 Ibid., Ixxiv., p. 672, 1913. 



