July 23, 1903] 



NATURE 



287 



Institute : — Head of the chemical department, Dr. H. 

 Reynolds; head of the physical department, Mr. J. H. 

 \'incent. 



The following research fellowships and scholarships have 

 been awarded by the executive committee of the Carnegie 

 Trust for the universities of Scotland. Research Fellow- 

 ships.— Chemical : Dr. C. E. Fawaitt, Dr. J. C. Irvine, 

 Mr. W. Maitland. Biological : Dr. J. Cameron. 

 Historical : Dr. D. Mackenzie. Research Scholarships. — 

 Physical : Mr. J. H. MacLagan Wedderburn, Mr. H. W. 

 Malcolm, Mr. J. R. Milne, Mr. T. B. Morley. Chemical: 

 Mr. J. Knox, Mr. J. Johnston, Mr. F. J. Wilson. Bio- 

 logical : Mr. S. F. Ashbv, Dr. R. T. Leiper, Mr. H. J. 

 Watt. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, May 28. — " Researches on Tetanus." 

 By Prof. Hans Meyer and Dr. F. Ransom. 



The experiments were in the first place made with the 

 object of finding an explanation for local tetanus. One of 

 the earliest and most striking symptoms of tetanus in man 

 is, as its popular name implies, stiffness of the masseter 

 muscles (lockjaw) ; this is the case wherever the infected 

 wound may be situated. In certain animals, however, as 

 cats, dogs, and rabbits, when tetanus toxin is injected 

 subcutaneously into a limb, the first symptom is a rigidity 

 of the muscles of the injected member ; this is known as 

 local tetanus. Afterwards, if enough toxin has been given, 

 the rigidity becomes general. An experimental explanation 

 of this condition has hitherto been wanting. 



The authors believe that their experiments prove con- 

 clusively that the course of events in experimental tetanus 

 is as follows : — The toxin is taken up from the point of 

 injection by the motor nerves (probably their naked end- 

 ings). Passing along these it reaches first the correspond- 

 ing motor centres in the spinal cord and excites there an 

 over-irritability, so that the discharges which normally 

 give rise to muscular tone become abnormally strong, and 

 produce in the muscles of the injected limb the condition 

 known as tetanic rigidity. The toxin also passes from 

 the point of injection into the lymphatics and thence into 

 the blood.' P'rom the blood-lymph stream, if enough has 

 been given, other motor nerve ends take up toxin, and 

 general muscular rigidity ensues. 



The authors show experimentally that the toxin only 

 reaches the nervous centres by way of the motor nerves, 

 and further, that the movement of the toxin in the nervous 

 system does not take place in the lymphatics, but in the 

 protoplasm of the nerves. Tetanus toxin never reaches 

 the spinal centres along the sensory nerves, but, if it is 

 injected into a posterior root, sensory disttirbance is the 

 result. 



The greater part of what is known as the period of 

 incubation, that is, the interval which elapses between the 

 injection of toxin and the first symptom of intoxication, 

 is the expression of the time occupied in the conveyance 

 of the toxine from the periphery along the motor nerves 

 to the susceptible centres. 



Relying upon the results of their experiments, the authors 

 are of opinion that the tetanus of warm-blooded animals 

 consists of two processes, separated from each other both 

 in time and space. Of these the one is primary, a motor 

 intoxication, local muscular rigidity ; the other, secondary, 

 is a local sensory intoxication, a diffused reflex tetanus 

 starting from the intoxicated neuron. 



Repeated experiments showed that, when tetanus toxin 

 was introduced direct into a motor nerve, antitoxin, though 

 present in large quantities in the blood, was unable to 

 prevent the outbreak of the disease, or even to hinder a 

 fatal result. This was the case both when large doses of 

 antitoxin were given before and after the toxin, as well 

 as when an actively immunised animal was emploved. The 

 experimenters therefore conclude that injected antitoxin 

 does not reach the substance of the nerve fibrils and centres, 



1 Ransom, Hoppe Seyler's Zeitschrift f physiol. Cheiiiie, Band xxix 

 and xxxi. 



NO. 1760, VOL. 68] 



and that even with highly immunised animals the neurons 

 remain free from antitoxin. As regards the serum treat- 

 ment of tetanus, it is clear that in these circumstances 

 any toxin which is already in the motor nerves, though 

 not yet in spinal centres, will not be neutralised by anti- 

 toxin, whether injected under the skin or direct into the 

 blood. An attack corresponding to the amount of toxin 

 absorbed by the nerves will break out and run its course 

 in spite of antitoxin. On the other hand, any toxin in 

 the blood or lymph will be rendered harmless by an injection 

 of antitoxin, and so a further intoxication will be prevented. 



The authors have further made successful attempts to 

 prevent the access of tetanus toxin along the motor nerve 

 to the susceptible centres by injecting antitoxin into the 

 nerve substance (ischiadicus), so, as it were, blocking the 

 passage of the toxin. 



Just before this paper was read, a case occurred at 

 Marburg of a man who received an injury of the hand 

 from the breaking of a flask of tetanus toxin. Antitoxin 

 in large quantity was injected under the skin a quarter of 

 an hour after the injury ; nevertheless, after eight days, a 

 local tetanus of the arm broke out. This was treated by 

 injection of antitoxin into the nerve trunks of the affected 

 limb, and the patient recovered. The occurrence of a local 

 tetanus in spite of the large quantities of antitoxin, and 

 the satisfactory result which followed, and perhaps was due 

 to the injection of antitoxin into the motor nerves of the 

 affected limb, show that the conveyance of the poison from 

 periphery to centre takes place in men, as in animals, along 

 the motor nerve, and affords, further, a valuable hint for 

 the treatment of tetanus. 



The full report of these experiments appears in Archiv 

 fiir experimentelle Pathologie und Pharmakologie, Band 

 xlix. 



June II. — " Observations on the Physiology of the 

 Cerebral Cortex of the Anthropoid Apes." By Dr. A. S. F. 

 Griinbaum and Prof. C. S. Sherringrton, F.R.S. 



June 18. — " Cyanogenesis in Plants. Part iii. Phaseo- 

 lunatin ; the Cyanogenetic Glucoside of Phaseolus lunatus." 

 By Wyndham R. Dunstan, M.A., F.R.S., Director of the 

 Imperial Institute, South Kensington, and T. A. Henryi 

 D.Sc. Lond. 



The poisonous seeds produced by partial cultivation in 

 Mauritius of the plant Phaseolus lunatus have been ex- 

 amined and found to contain a cyanogenetic glucoside of 

 the formula C,(,H,jOjN, to which the name Phaseolunatin 

 has been given. The glucoside crystallises in colourless 

 needles, and when acted upon by the enzyme emulsin, which 

 is also present in the seeds, or by warm dilute acids, it is 

 hydrolysed into dextrose, acetone, and hydrocyanic acid. 



C,„H„0,N-f-H,0-C.H.,0,+CH,.C0.CH3-t-HCN. 



Alkalis convert the glucoside into phaseolunatinic acid 

 (C,„H,gO,), and this, by the further action of hot dilute 

 acids, is hydrolysed into dextrose and a-hydroxyisobutyric 

 acid. Phaseolunatin is therefore the dextrose ether of 

 acetone cyanhydrin (CHj)^ : C(CN).0.CjH.,05. 



The seeds produced by Phaseolus lunatus vary in toxicity 

 and in the colour of their seed-coats, depending upon the 

 care bestowed on the cultivation of the plant. In Mauritius, 

 where the plant is grown for use as a green manure, the 

 seeds furnish, when moistened with water, from 0041 to 

 0088 per cent, of prussic acid, and possess dark brown 

 or purple seed-coats; in India the seeds, which are imported 

 into this country under the name of " Rangoon " or 

 " Paigya " beans, and are used for the manufacture of cattle 

 foods, are pink with purple spots, and yield only 0004 per 

 cent, of this acid, whilst the large, white Lima or dufiin 

 beans, produced by long-continued cultivation of the plant, 

 yield no prussic acid, although they still contain the enzyme 

 emulsin. 



It is suggested that if hydrocyanic acid or its precursors 

 — the cyanogenetic glucosides — in plants, may be regarded 

 as formative materials utilised for the synthesis of proteids, 

 then the absence of such glucosides from the cultivated 

 seeds of Phaseolus lunatus, and from those of the cultivated 

 almond, may be the result of more active metabolism 

 induced by improved conditions of growth, so that no 

 supplies of the glucoside are available for storage as reserve 

 material in the seeds. 



