100 INFECTION AND RESISTANCE 



of rabbits that had thyroid hypertrophies and were, in consequence, 

 atropin-susceptible. Other observations of a similar significance 

 have been made by Physalix and Contejean 78 on curare, but have 

 not been confirmed, and the investigations of all other workers on 

 this subject have had negative results. It seems from available evi- 

 dence that tolerance (immunity) against drugs is due to cellular 

 rather than to serum antagonism. 



THE ORIGIN OF ANTIBODIES 



The tissue cell, as the ultimate functional unit, must, of course, 

 be looked upon as the source from which originate the various pro- 

 tective constituents of normal and immune sera; and, though per- 

 haps unrecognizable by the coarse tests of morphological investiga- 

 tions, it is in the cells that changes must take place primarily when 

 the animal body is subjected to any one of the processes spoken of as 

 immunization. The exact location of the antibody-forming cells and 

 tissues, in spite of much investigation, is not at all clear, though 

 many data seem to point to the lymphatic organs, the spleen, and the 

 bone marrow as particularly concerned with this process. 



Thus Pfeiffer and Marx 79 exsanguinated animals five days after 

 injections of dead cholera spirilla and found that at this time bac- 

 teriolytic antibodies were more concentrated in the spleen than in 

 the blood serum itself. Wassermann's 80 analogous experiments with 

 typhoid bacilli seemed to show a higher antibody content in spleen, 

 bone marrow, thymus, and lymph nodes than was present in the 

 blood at an early period of immunization. Although these investiga- 

 tions, as well as many others of Castellani, 81 seem, therefore, to indi- 

 cate a particular association of the special lymphatic organs with 

 antibody formation, 82 extirpation of the spleen 83 before immuniza- 

 tion has not prevented animals from responding to injections of bac- 

 teria and red blood cells with sharp antibody production. The ex- 

 periments of Deutsch, 84 in which reduction of antibody formation 

 resulted in animals in which splenectomy was practiced three or four 

 days after immunization was begun, can hardly be accepted as a con- 

 clusion, in the writer's opinion at least, since any severe operation or 

 interference with the normal functions of an animal during the 

 severe physiological strain of active immunization would naturally 

 lead to a less perfect response. That the resistance of animals and 

 man to infection with bacteria is not noticeably diminished by sple- 



78 Physalix and Contejean. Cited from Meyer and Gottlieb. 

 . 79 Pfeiffer and Marx. Zeitschr. f. Hyg., Vol. 27, 1898. 



80 Wassermann. Berl. klin. Woch., p. 209, 1898. 



81 Castellani. Zeitsch. f. Hyg., Vol. 37, 1901. 



82 Pfeiffer and Marx. Loc. cit. 



** I. Levin. Jour. Med. Ees., Vol. 8, 1902. 



S4 Deutsch. Ann. de I'Inst. Past., Vol. 13, 1899. 



