INFECTION AND RESISTANCE 



Doerr, 28 29 and others of having discovered true (antitoxin-forming) 

 soluble toxins 30 in such cultures as those of cholera, dysentery 

 Shiga, and typhoid bacilli add another complication. The present 

 status of the question, it seems to us, may be summed up as follows : 

 It may probably be accepted as a fact that anaphylatoxin production 

 occurs and accounts for toxemia, altogether or in part, in all dis- 

 eases in which bacteria invade the tissues or circulation ; in addition 

 to this, soluble toxins produced by the bacteria still living and unin- 

 jured may add a further specific element to the condition in some 

 diseases ; whether or not specific preformed endotoxins participate in 

 the production of bacterial toxemia cannot be definitely stated. 

 It is not, however, a necessary assumption. 



It still remains for us to consider certain experimental facts 

 which have had some influence upon extending and altering the con- 

 ceptions of anaphylatoxin formation which we have just outlined. 

 In the earlier work of Friedberger, Neufeld and Dold, and others the 

 poisons were formed from the bacteria by the action of alexin at 

 low temperatures. This suggested the possibility that the alexin frac- 

 tions "Endstiick" and "Mittelstiick" might not both be involved 

 in the reaction, since, from previous studies, it was known that at low 

 temperatures the midpiece (the globulin fraction) was bound, but 

 that the end piece did not become active until the temperature was 

 increased. This point was, therefore, made the object of a special 

 investigation by Friedberger and Ito, 31 who found that neither 

 fraction alone would suffice, but that bacterial anaphylatoxins were 

 formed only under the influence of the intact whole alexin, or by 

 that of the two fractions, reunited after separation. 



Because of the reasoning along which the investigations of 

 anaphylatoxin formation were developed, it is not surprising that it 

 seemed self-evident that the matrix of the poison was represented by 

 the bacterial protein the antigen of the lytic complex. The only 

 fact which, in the earlier experiments, might have cast some doubt 

 upon this was the ease with which anaphylatoxins were produced 

 from boiled bacteria and precipitates and from such very insoluble 

 organisms as the tubercle bacillus. 



Such vague suspicion becomes a very definite doubt, however, 

 in the light of the experiments of Keysser and Wassermann. 32 

 Keysser and Wassermann utilized the fact that certain serum ele- 

 ments may be absorbed out of serum if this is shaken up with such 

 indifferent suspensions as barium sulphate or kaolin (aluminium 



28 Kraus u. Doerr. Wien. klin. Woch., No. 42, 1905. 



29 Kraus. "Kraus u. Levaditi Handbuch," Vol. 1, p. 180. 



30 Exotoxins. 



31 Friedberger and Ito. Zeitsclir. f. Immunitatsforsch., Vol. 11, 1911. 



32 Keysser and Wassermann. Folia Serologica, Vol. 7, 1911 ; Zeitschr. 

 f. Hyg., Vol. 68, 1911. 



