166 THE TOXINS PRODUCED BY BACTERIA 



solutions of albumins, and, further, never subjected the results 

 of the bacterial growth to heat above 40 C., or to any stronger 

 agent than absolute alcohol. He found that albumoses and 

 sometimes peptones were formed by the action of the patho- 

 genic bacteria studied, and further, that the precipitate contain- 

 ing these albumoses was toxic. In certain cases the process of 

 splitting up of the albumins went further than in peptic diges- 

 tion, and organic bases or acids might be formed. According to 

 Martin, the characteristic symptoms of the diseases could be 

 explained by compound actions, in which the albumoses were 

 responsible for some of the effects, the remaining bodies for 

 others. A similar digestive action has been traced in the case 

 of the tubercle bacillus by Kuhne. 



Further evidence that bacterial toxins are either albumoses 

 or bodies having a still smaller molecule is furnished by C. J. 

 Martin. This worker, by filling the pores of a Chamberland 

 bougie with gelatin, has obtained what is practically a strongly 

 supported colloid membrane through which dialysis can be made 

 to take place under great pressure, say, of compressed oxygen. 

 He finds that in such an apparatus toxins, at least two kinds 

 tried, will pass through just as an albumose will. 



Brieger and Boer, working with bouillon cultures of diphtheria 

 and tetanus, have, by precipitation with zinc chloride, separated 

 bodies which show characteristic toxic properties, but which have 

 the reactions neither of peptone, albumose, nor album inate, and 

 the nature of which is unknown. It has also been found that 

 the bacteria of tubercle, tetanus, diphtheria, and cholera can 

 produce toxins when growing in proteid-free fluids. In the case 

 of diphtheria when the toxin is produced in such a fluid a proteid 

 reaction appears. Of course this need not necessarily be caused 

 by the toxin. Further investigation is here required, for 

 Uschinsky, applying Brieger and Boer's method to a toxin so 

 produced, states that the toxic body is not precipitated by zinc 

 salts, but remains free in the medium. If the toxins are really 

 non-proteid they may, on the one hand, be the final product of 

 a digestive action, or they may be the manifestation of a separate 

 vital activity on the part of the bacteria. On the latter theory 

 the toxicity of the toxic albumoses of Sidney Martin may be due to 

 the precipitation of the true toxins along with these other bodies. 

 From the chemical standpoint this is quite possible. When we 

 take into account the extraordinary potency of these poisons (in 



trace of acetic acid be present. Dysalbnmose is probably merely a temporary 

 modification of hetero-albumose. Further digestion of deutero- albumose 

 results in the formation of peptone. 



