486 ANAEROBIC BACTERIA 



to sunlight or oxygen. If it is kept in the dark in sealed, full bottles 

 and kept cool it retains its potency for some months. It keeps still 

 better dried in the absence of light and moisture. Heat promptly 

 inactivates it. An exposure at 58 C. for three hours, or at 80 C. for 

 thirty minutes utterly destroys its potency. It is not, however, 

 destroyed by putrefaction or by gastric digestion, a point of great 

 importance clinically, for poisoning with the toxin of B. botulinus 

 almost always results from its absorption from the intestinal tract. 

 The toxin has also been isolated from hams in which the organisms 

 have grown. The hams are macerated with water in a cool, dark 

 place, filtered through porcelain, and the filtrate is found to contain 

 the toxin. The toxin also is produced when the organisms grow under 

 proper conditions in vegetables. 1 The toxin causes death when 

 injected subcutaneously or fed to experimental animals. There is a 

 latent period which elapses between the time of administration of the 

 toxin and the appearance of symptoms. This latent period when large 

 doses are administered is from twelve to twenty hours; with moderate 

 doses it is about thirty-six hours. One-thousandth c.c. of broth con- 

 taining toxin injected subcutaneously into guinea-pigs usually kills them 

 in three to four days; 0.1 to 0.5 c.c. of the same toxin absorbed in 

 bread and fed to rabbits results fatally in from four to six days. It 

 is toxic for man, white rats, mice, kittens, guinea-pigs, rats, and even 

 monkeys in relatively small doses. In larger doses it is also patho- 

 logical for cats and doves. The toxin is bound by the gray matter 

 of the central nervous system. Cholesterin, lecithin, and fats such 

 as butter and oils are believed to bind the toxin as well. 



Antitoxin. Kempner 2 has succeeded in immunizing goats to the 

 toxin of B. botulinus, and has identified in their serum a specific anti- 

 toxin which has considerable potency both curatively and prophylac- 

 tically. Wassermann has been able to immunize horses with the same 

 results. The antitoxin neutralizes the toxin both in vivo and in vitro. 3 

 Leuchs has shown that dilute acids will split up the toxin-antitoxin 

 combination into the two components, both of which may be recovered. 



Pathogenesis The lesions produced by the toxin both in man and 

 in animals are very similar, and the symptoms produced are referable 

 to the action of the toxin on the medulla and cord. 4 There is bulbar 

 paralysis, paralysis of the eye muscles, great muscular weakness, 



1 Landmann, Hyg. Rundschau, 1894, 449. 



2 Ztschr. f. Hyg., 1897, xxvi, 482. 



3 Forssman and Lundstrom, Ann. Inst. Past., 1902, 294. 



4 Kempner and Scheplewsky, Ztschr. f. Hyg., 1898, xxvii, 214. 



