BACTERIAL ANAPHYLAXIS 427 



the anaphylactic poison. They are also, of course, to be regarded as 

 the source of the poison in such experiments as those of Vaughan, in 

 which the poison was produced by chemical hydrolysis of the bac- 

 terial bodies. In the case of anaphylatoxin production by fresh 

 serum in the presence of bacteria, kaolin, precipitates, etc., the ques- 

 tion is much more complex. 



As we have stated before, it is only natural, considering our pre- 

 vious knowledge of bacteriolysis in serum, that the first conclusion 

 arrived at should look for the source of the poisons in the bacterial 

 cells. The doubt which has been cast upon this assumption by the 

 work of Keysser and Wassermann and others, however, rests upon a 

 sufficiently sound experimental basis to prevent our absolute accept- 

 ance of this view. Jobling and Petersen 38 have recently carried out 

 experiments which may serve to throw much light upon anaphyla- 

 toxin. They believe that, by the ordinary technique of anaphylatoxin 

 production with bacteria and serum, most of the toxic substances orig- 

 inate from the serum proteins. The bacteria act merely by remov- 

 ing the antiferments from the serum, thereby setting free the fer- 

 ments normally present in the serum, and permitting them to act 

 upon the serum proteins. The result is cleavage and the production 

 of toxic split products. This would explain such results as those of 

 Keysser and Wassermann. Jobling and Petersen have supported 

 their contention by experiments in which they have obtained typical 

 anaphylatoxins by removing serum antiferments with chloroform, 

 kaolin, and agar. They have further shown that emulsions of bac- 

 teria actually do remove antiferments from fresh serum, and that 

 the bacteria used in the process become more resistant to tryptic 

 digestion in consequence. 



This does not necessarily weaken the force of Friedberger's view 

 of infectious disease. For, whatever the source of the toxic sub- 

 stances, the result is still the same. Wherever proteolysis takes 

 place, and certain quantitative relations between cleavage, energy, 

 and substratum exist, it seems toxic bodies may be liberated. 



And the result of such proteolysis, at some stage of the process, 

 yields apparently the same non-specific toxic substance, whatever the 

 particular nature of the proteolysis and whatever the variety of the 

 original protein matrix. 



38 Jobling and Petersen. Jour, of Exp. Med., June, 1914. 



