ANAPHYLAXIS 403 



resist 1% to 2 units of poison, the tolerance developing within three 

 days and lasting, to a slight degree, for as long as two months. It 

 seemed to them that animals treated with a second dose of anaphyla- 

 toxin within 24 hours after the first, if the results of this first in- 

 jection have been severe, as they usually are, are still weak and 

 generally depressed in vitality, so that a developed tolerance may be 

 clouded by this condition. The tolerance did not seem to be strictly 

 specific in that typhoid anaphylatoxin seemed to produce a moderate 

 tolerance to prodigiosus anaphylatoxin. 



It would seem, therefore, that in anti-anaphylaxis we might have 

 two very important elements. The one, strictly specific, depends 

 upon the depletion of antigen from the body, a true "desensitization." 

 The other, non-specific, and probably of secondary importance since 

 so far it has not been shown to any very powerful degree, consists of 

 the development of tolerance by the body cells for the anaphylactic 

 poison. 



NATURE OF ANAPHYLACTIC POISON 



As to the nature of the anaphylactic poison we are also to a large 

 extent in the dark. From the experimentation upon the production 

 of these poisons in vitro it appears that they are protein cleavage 

 products. This is indirectly indicated also by metabolism experi- 

 ments such as those of Friedemann and Isaak, 56 and of Weichhardt 

 and Schittenhelm. 57 It appeared from this work that, as measured 

 by nitrogen output, the cleavage of foreign protein injected into 

 specifically sensitized or immunized dogs occurred with much greater 

 energy and speed than occurred in normal animals after first in- 

 jection. 



Attempts to obtain the poison by non-specific methods that is, 

 by purely chemical processes without the agencies of alexin and sen- 

 sitizer or antibody have been made with apparent success by 

 Vaughan and Wheeler, 58 w T hose toxic, alcohol-soluble fraction (ob- 

 tained by boiling egg-white in absolute alcohol containing 2 per cent. 

 ^aOH) seems to produce typical anaphylaxis in guinea pigs. This 

 substance Vaughan and Wheeler regard as a protein, whereas Wells 59 

 states that it may be this, or a "soluble peptone or polypeptid, con- 

 taining enough of the different aminoacids to give all the usual reac- 

 tions." Weichhardt, 60 too, has obtained similar poisons by a method 

 similar in principle to that of Vaughan and Wheeler. 



56 Friedemann and Isaak. Zeitschr. f. exp. Path. u. Ther., Vol. 1, 1905. 



57 Schittenhelm u. Weichhardt. Munch, med. Woch., 1910, No. 34, and 

 1911. 



58 Vaughan and Wheeler. Loc. cit. 



59 Wells. Jour. Inf. Dis., Vol. 5, 1908. 



60 Weichhardt. Centralbl. f. die ges. Phys. u. Path, des Stoffivechsels, 

 No. 15, 1909. Ref. "Weichhardt's Jahresbericht," 1910, p. 554. 



