156 THE TOX1NES PRODUCED BY BACTERIA. 



evidence of pathogenic effects being produced at a distance 

 from the actual focus of bacterial growth. This is further 

 an instance of what we have strong reason to believe some- 

 times occurs, namely that the toxines produced by bacteria, 

 when these are growing in the animal body, differ somewhat 

 from the toxines produced by the same bacteria growing 

 in artificial media. Poisons appearing in cultures have 

 been called extracellular toxines, but, as we shall see, we 

 cannot as yet say whether they are excreted by the bacteria 

 or whether they are produced by the latter acting on the 

 constituents of the media. We therefore cannot as yet 

 draw a hard and fast line between intra- and extracellular 

 toxines, but the terms are convenient. The extracellular 

 toxines are the more easily obtainable in large quantities, 

 and it is their nature and effects which are best known. 

 One other fact may be noted, namely, that different kinds 

 of toxines, e.g., as regards action, destructibility by heat, 

 etc., may be produced by the same bacillus. Such occurs 

 in the case of the B. diphtherias. 



The Nature of Toxines. The earlier investigations upon 

 toxines suggested that analogies exist between the modes of 

 bacterial action and what takes place in ordinary gastric 

 digestion, and the idea has been worked out for certain 

 pathogenic bacteria by Sidney Martin. This observer took, 

 not solutions artificially made up with albumoses, but the 

 natural fluids of the body or definite solutions of albumins, 

 and, further, never subjected the results of the bacterial- 

 growth to heat above 40 C., nor to any stronger agent than 

 absolute alcohol. He showed that albumoses and some- 

 times peptones were formed by the action of the pathogenic 

 bacteria studied, and further, that these albumoses were toxic. 

 In certain cases the process of splitting up of the albumins 

 went further than in peptic digestion, and organic bases or 

 acids might be formed. The characteristic symptoms of the 

 diseases could be explained by compound actions, in which 

 the albumoses were responsible for some of the effects, the 

 other bodies for others. The precise effects produced in 

 the cases studied by Martin will be taken up under the 



