PROTEOSES AND PEPTONES 467 



According to most observers, precipitins for proteoses and 

 peptones cannot be obtained by experimental immunization, 

 although the animal may show a distinct increase in resist- 

 ance ; possibly this failure is not due to a lack of formation 

 of antibodies, but to their forming a compound with prote- 

 oses (or peptones) which is soluble, and hence no precipitation 

 results. 1 



As the decomposition of the proteid molecule continues, the 

 toxic effects of the resulting substances seem to decrease along 

 with the decreased size of the molecules. Thus Wolf 2 found 

 that the amino-acids do not cause a fall of blood pressure, nor 

 do polypeptids. 3 



"Alimmosuria." If proteoses enter the blood stream 

 they appear in large part in the urine, indicating that the tissues 

 do not readily utilize them in this form. 4 Consequently, when 

 proteoses are produced in considerable amounts by autolysis of 

 pathological tissues they appear in the urine, and their presence 

 is considered to be of diagnostic value. 5 True peptone seems 

 rarely, and according to many observers never, to appear in the 

 urine. (In view of the recent observations that polypeptids 

 often appear in the urine, it is probable that true peptones also 

 do.) Albumoses, therefore, may be found in the urine when- 

 ever any considerable amount of tissue or exudate is being 

 autolyzed and absorbed, and it has been- found in the following 

 conditions : Suppuration of all kinds ; resolution of pneu- 

 monia ; involution of the puerperal uterus ; carcinoma (two- 

 thirds of all cases Ury and Lilienthal), and other malignant 

 growths ; febrile conditions with tissue destruction (37.5 per 

 cent, of all cases, Morawitz and Dietschy) 6 ; acute yellow 

 atrophy, phosphorus poisoning, and eclampsia; leukemia, 



indeed, often spontaneously show this condition when apparently otherwise 

 normal. " Peptone " injections in dogs and guinea-pigs have failed to cause a 

 similar cirrhosis, and hence the value of these and all other rabbit experiments 

 on cirrhosis of the liver is very questionable ; however, the possibility of the 

 correctness of the original conclusion still remains open. 



^Sacconaghi (Zeit. klin. Med., 1903 (51), 187), however, claims to get 

 precipitins by immunizing against either albumose or peptones, which precipi- 

 tins are not specific for the substance used in immunizing, but are specific for 

 the proteids of the species from which the albumoses and peptones are derived. 



2 Jour, of Physiol., 1905 (32), 171. 



3 Halliburton, ibid., 1905 (32), 174. 



* They may be partly hydrolized into smaller complexes, however, primary 

 proteoses being partly changed to deutero-proteoses, and the latter partly to pep- 

 tones (Chittenden, Mendel, and Henderson, Amer. Jour. Physiol., 1899 (2), 142 ). 



3 See Yarrow, Amer. Med., 1903 (5), 452; Ury and Lilienthal, Arch. f. 

 Verdauungskr., 1905 (11), 72; Senator, International Clinics, 1905 (4, series 

 14), 85. 



6 Arch. f. exp. Path. u. Pharm., 1905 (54), 88. 



