REACTIONS BETWEEN ANTIBODIES 2Q 



in recent times. When Madsen and I calculated for the first 

 time the action of tetanolysin and antilysin upon each 

 other under the supposition that this action comprehended 

 a reversible process, we knew also very well that the teta- 

 nolysin was simultaneously subject to another reaction, 

 which destroyed it slowly. But in this circumstance there 

 was no reason for not employing the known laws for re- 

 versible processes. We ascertained for ourselves that the 

 influence of this secondary process may, with the given 

 method of experimentation, be disregarded. Had this not 

 been the case, a correction for the disturbing effect would 

 have been applied. Recently Sachs 1 has shown that an- 

 other reaction than that investigated by Madsen and myself 

 takes place between tetanolysin and its antitoxin, which 

 may to a certain extent interfere with the chief reaction 

 studied by us. The simple relations found by us seem to 

 indicate that in this case also the perturbations caused by 

 the new factor do not exceed a certain value, of such a 

 magnitude that may be neglected in ordinary experiments 

 on the neutralisation of tetanolysin. We shall later on 

 return to this question. 



The incompleteness of the chemical binding process 

 between toxins and antitoxins has aided in retarding the 

 idea that real chemical compounds are formed in the union 

 of these substances. The only chemical reactions which 

 were familiar to the scientists who studied the neutralisa- 

 tion of toxins were the complete reactions. Behring, 2 

 who was the first in this field, expressed the opinion that 



1 H. Sachs: "tiber die Constitution des Tetanolysins," Berl. klin. Wochen- 

 schrift, No. 16 (1904). 



2 Behring and Kitasato : Deutsche med. Wochcnschrift, No. 49 (1890). 



