CHAPTER VIII 



RECENT WORK ON ANAPHYLAXIS 



By S. Roodhouse Gloyne 



The modern tendency to recognise anaphylaxis in 

 almost every phenomenon of immunity has not onK'- 

 led to the production of an ever-increasing literature 

 on the subject, but it has also caused a good deal of 

 confusion as to the real meaning of the word. If 

 the subject is to be a pathological entity at all, it 

 must be something more definite than a vague hyper- 

 sensitiveness to infection, and by no means the least 

 contribution to the question in the present work of 

 Besredka is the attempt to define clearly the symp- 

 toms and signs of the reaction. Obviously, all cases 

 of acute illness or sudden death after inoculation 

 cannot be attributed to anaphylaxis without careful 

 investigation and, if possible, adequate proof. 



The first difficulty encountered is that of bridging 

 the gap which exists in almost all experimental work 

 in pathology between phenomena artificially produced 

 in animals and signs and symptoms observed in man. 

 In either case the onset of symptoms is sudden and 

 immediate. In animals three stages in the rapid pro- 

 gress of the condition can be recognised (Vaughan)^ — 

 (i) peripheral irritation, in which the animal becomes 

 violently excited and scratches itself furiously; 



(2) paresis, most marked generally in the hind limbs; 



(3) general convulsions, with expulsion of urine and 

 faeces, dyspnoea, collapse, and often death. As 

 shewn by Besredka, these symptoms are most clearly 



1 " Protein Split Products," 191 3. 

 117 



