126 CHEMISTRY OF BACTERIA AND THEIR PRODUCTS 



are more or less toxic, and the toxic effects of the bacterial pro- 

 teids are, for the most part, neither specific nor particularly 

 striking. There are a few pathogenic organisms, however, 

 which seem to produce neither true toxins nor endotoxins, not- 

 ably the tubercle bacillus and the anthrax bacillus, and with 

 these there may be a relation between their proteid constituents 

 and their specific effects. 1 



Numerous proteid substances have been extracted from bac- 

 terial cells, particularly nucleoproteids, but also proteids resem- 

 bling albumins, nucleo-albumin, and globulins. In all probability 

 the chief proteids of the bacterial cell are nuclein compounds, 

 which is indicated both by their nuclear staining and by the 

 analyses of Iwanoff ; 2 and many of the nucleoproteids, both of 

 bacterial and non-bacterial origin, cause considerable local 

 inflammatory reaction when injected into animals. Tiberti 3 

 claims that vaccination with non-lethal doses of the nucleo- 

 proteids of anthrax bacilli will protect animals against inocu- 

 lations of virulent anthrax bacilli. Some of the earlier 

 observations on the toxicity of bacterial proteids were erroneous 

 because impure proteids, containing toxins, endotoxins, and 

 ptomams were used. 



Vaughan and his students have been able to split off from 

 the bodies of various pathogenic bacteria toxic materials which 

 are stated to resemble in some respects the protamins, 4 although 

 they do not all give a satisfactory biuret test. These toxic 

 materials are evidently quite different from either the true solu- 

 ble toxins or the endotoxins, since they resist heating for ten 

 minutes, at 110 in the autoclave with 1 per cent, sulphuric acid, 

 this being the method used for securing the substance, which is 

 precipitated out by alcohol. Since the sarcinse and B. prodigio- 

 sus also yield similar toxic products, they cannot be considered 

 as the specific toxic substances of the pathogenic bacteria. With 

 some bacteria the splitting process with sulphuric acid separates 

 completely the toxic from the non-toxic insoluble bacterial sub- 

 stance, 5 e. g.y B. coli communis ; with others a toxic portion 

 remains insoluble. The colon bacillus proteid gives all the 

 proteid reactions, is synthesized on Uschinsky's medium, and 

 does not yield a reducing carbohydrate. From B. typhosus 



1 Baldwin and Levene (loc. cit.) found that the active constituent of tuber- 

 culin was destroyed or digested by trypsin and not by pepsin, indicating that 

 it was probably a nucleoproteid. 



2 Hofmeister's Beitr., 1902 (1), 524. 3 Cent. f. Bakt., 1906 (40), 742. 



* Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc., 1903 (40), 838; 1904 (43), 643; see also Boston- 

 Med. and Surg. Jour., Aug. 30 et seq., 1906. 



5 Wheeler, Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc., 1905 (44), 1271. 



