ANAPHYLAXIS 367 



temperature curves in animals, was expressed by Vaughan 21 as early 

 as 1909, and was developed by him with Gumming and Wright 22 in 

 an extensive study upon what he called "protein fever." It was 

 shown in these experiments that continued fever, not unlike that of 

 infectious diseases, could be produced in rabbits by repeated subcu- 

 taneous injections of primarily harmless substances, such as egg 

 white and vegetable proteins. The conditions observed and the con- 

 clusions drawn from them in this work, as well as in the similar in- 

 vestigations of other workers, were clearly foreseen by Vaughan in 

 his early investigations on proteid split-products studies, which we 

 will find occasion to discuss in a later section. 



The rigidity of the diagnostic value of the temperature relations 

 for anaphylactic shock in particular, as advanced by Pfeiffer, was 

 somewhat weakened by Ranzi's 23 observations that foreign serum 

 may produce temperature depression when injected into -perfectly 

 normal animals and that, injected into sensitized animals, the same 

 reaction may follow if other proteins than the original antigen were 

 administered. 



Although these objections of Ranzi are perfectly just, yet there 

 is such a marked quantitative difference between the reaction in nor- 

 mal and in sensitized animals that, in principle, Pfeiffer's claim is 

 not invalidated. Friedberger 24 very logically remarks that, after 

 all, the phenomena of sensitization as well as those of immunity are 

 merely an exaggeration of normal physiological conditions, and in 

 experiment he has shown that, whereas noticeable depressions of tem- 

 perature will follow in the normal animal only upon quantities of 

 antigen exceeding 0.5 c. c., the temperature of the sensitized animal 

 may be depressed by amounts as small as 0.0005 c. c. 



Apart from the symptoms so far discussed, there are other less 

 apparent characteristics of anaphylaxis in guinea pigs, all of which, 

 however, possess considerable importance theoretically. The most sig- 

 nificant of these is the reduction in the amount of alexin or comple- 

 ment, first noticed by Sleeswijk, 25 which occurs after the injection 

 of the second or toxogenic dose during the development of shock. 

 This phenomenon is so closely interwoven with the later theoretical 

 aspects of anaphylaxis that we will defer its discussion until we 

 have completed a more general survey of the field. 



In guinea pigs, as in dogs, Friedberger and others have also seen 

 a lowered coagulability of the blood and a temporary diminution of 

 the polynuclear leukocytes (leukopenia) during shock. 



21 Vaughan. Zeitschr. f. Immunitatsforschung, Vol. 1, 1909. 



22 Vaughan, Gumming, and Wright. Zeitschr. f. Immunitatsforschung, 

 Vol. 9, 1911. 



23 Ranzi. Zeitschr. f. Immunitatsforschung, Vol. 2, 1909 ; Wien. klin* 

 Woch., No. 40, 1909. ' 



24 Friedberger u. Mita. Loc. cit. 



25 Sleeswijk. Zeitschr. f: Immunitatsforschung, Vol. 2, 1909. 



