888 Chapter XII 



substances I have just mentioned, would protect animals against the 

 venom of the viper. 



Bearing all these facts in mind, it appears to be probable that in 

 the above cases it is principally the fatty matters of the nerve centres 

 that temporarily fix these toxins, and allow the animal organism to 

 divert the poisons from their morbific action. From this point of 

 view, it is interesting to note that the toxic action of the tetanus 

 poison can also be prevented by other substances than the emulsion 

 of the nerve centres. Thus Stoudensky^ demonstrated, in an investi- 

 gation carried out in Roux's laboratory, that carmine fixes the 

 tetanus toxin and prevents its action on the guinea-pig. As in the 

 case of the cerebral substance, this fixation by carmine is very 

 unstable. When the carmine that has fixed the tetanotoxin is 

 macerated in distilled w ater it gives up the poison to the water which 

 is then capable of producing tetanus. Sucli fixation does not end, any 

 more than in the case of the cerebral substance, in the destruction or 

 disappearance of the toxin. Carmine if first dissolved or macerated 

 in water (especially if heated) loses its fixative power and can no 

 longer prevent tetanus poisoning. Sterilisation, at 120°, 100° and 

 even at 60° C, of the carmine, suspended in physiological salt 

 solution, caused it to lose its protective action, although dry heat 

 applied to it in closed tubes did not destroy this power. 

 [408] In many respects carmine, which is derived especially from the 

 adipose body of the cochineal insect, exerts an antitoxic influence 

 analogous to that of maceration with the nerve centres. If fats play 

 a special part in this action, we can readily understand how a brain, 

 such as that of the frog, poor in fatty matters, cannot fix the tetanus 

 toxin and prevent its morbific action. In any case the fact that 

 certain substances of diverse nature, acting on toxins, exert an 

 influence similar to that of the pounded mass of the nerve centres, 

 does not allow us to accept Wassermann and Takaki's experiment as 

 proving the nervous origin of tetanus antitoxin. The analogy with 

 the facts bearing on the anticytotoxins, collected and described in the 

 fifth chapter, also tells against this hypothesis. We would here remind 

 the reader that the two constituent parts of the antispermotoxin, 

 the anticytase and the antispermofixative, develop in castrated 

 animals and are consequently produced outside the spermatozoa, 

 elements susceptible to the spermotoxin. The facts collected con- 



1 Ann. de rinst. Pasteur^ Paris, 1899, t. xiii, p. 126. 



