382 Chapter XII 



[401] in the nerve cells and pass thence into the circulation. Indeed, 

 Wassermann, a supporter of this theory, made a search for tetanus 

 antitoxin in the nerve centres of normal animals. In collaboration 

 with Takaki 1 he made the important discovery that the brain 

 and spinal cord of small mammals (guinea-pigs and rabbits) when 

 triturated with tetanus toxin prevent the manifestation of its toxic 

 action in animals most susceptible to tetanus. The brain was always 

 found to be more active than the spinal cord. The property of 

 neutralising the toxin of tetanus belongs to the solid parts of the 

 nerve centres ; the fluid of the cerebral emulsion is incapable of 

 exercising this action. 



This discovery was soon confirmed. Ransom 2 demonstrated it 

 almost at the same time, and independently of Wassermann and 

 Takaki ; and the fact is indisputable. It remains to be seen whether 

 the " antitoxin " of the nerve centres of normal animals is really the 

 same as that which is found in the fluids of animals immunised against 

 tetanus toxin, as is accepted by Wassermann and the other partisans 

 of the side-chain theory. The former is characterised by a very local 

 reaction ; it is incapable of being dissolved and distributed through 

 the body of the animal. This is shown by Marie's 3 experiments, and 

 my own 4 , all carried out in my laboratory. All that is necessary is to 

 introduce, beneath the dorsal surface of the thigh of a guinea-pig, a 

 quantity of the cerebral substance sufficient to neutralise several 

 times the lethal dose of toxin, and below the skin of the ventral 

 aspect of the same thigh, a lethal dose of this toxin, when it will be 

 found that the guinea-pig contracts a fatal tetanus. The antitoxic 

 action of the nerve substance extends, therefore, for a short dis- 

 tance only ; it is strictly local. 



The view that the action of the substance of the pounded nerve 

 centres is different from the neutralisation of the toxin by the anti- 

 toxin of the body fluids is further confirmed by the fact that the 

 fixation of the tetanus poison by the cerebral substance is very 

 transient. We have shown that a mixture of toxin and pounded 

 cerebral substance, that does not produce any tetanic symptom when 

 injected into the peritoneal cavity of guinea-pigs, gets up a grave 

 tetanus when it is injected subcutaneously into the thigh. In the 



1 Berl Tdin. Wchnschr., 1898, S. 5. 



2 Deutsche med. Wchnschr., Leipzig, 1898, S. 68. 



8 Ann. de VInst. Pasteur, Paris, 1898, t. xn, p. 91. 



4 Ann. de I'lnst. Pasteur, Paris, 1898, t xn, pp. 81, 263. 



