246 MICROBES AND TOXINS 



animals were divided into two lots, the first receiving i c.c., as 

 an anti-anaphylactic injection, five hours before the sero- 

 vaccination. In the result it was found that during the twenty- 

 four hours following the sero-vaccination, not one of these 

 showed any anaphylactic symptoms, whereas ten of the other 

 ninety showed symptoms, such as oedema of the muzzle with 

 salivation, oedema of the vulvar and anal mucous membranes, 

 and colic (Alexandresco and Ciuca). 



Theories. No final theory for anaphylaxis yet exists, but 

 there are various hypotheses A which keep experimental work 

 active. There is one point, however, which is certain, that it 

 is impossible to explain the phenomena without the presence of 

 an antibody formed by the animal as a consequence of the 

 first injection. This has been demonstrated by M. Nicolle in 

 connection with Arthus's phenomenon. 



It is probable that the anaphylactic shock is due to the union 

 of antibody and antigen, that this union is abrupt and affects 

 especially the nerve-cells, which does not mean that the nerve- 

 cells produce the antibody. On the contrary, everything points 

 to their not creating the supersensitiveness, but being passively 

 affected in it. 



According to Vaughan and Wheeler, who studied in par- 

 ticular the anaphylaxis to egg-white, the sensitizing injection, as 

 an antibody, provokes the formation of a. preferment which can 

 only act after the reinjection by splitting the protein molecule 

 into two components, one toxic, the other not. As a matter of 

 fact it is possible in the laboratory to produce from albumin 

 two such components, but the toxic one is also toxic for normal 

 animals quite as much as for sensitive ones : this therefore is 

 not an explanation of anaphylaxis, though it shows that there 

 exist toxic elements in substances normally non-toxic. 



It was natural to attempt to identify the antibody of anaphylaxis 

 with some antibody already known in the reactions of immunity. 

 This was Friedberger's idea : in serum anaphylaxis the antibody 

 is nothing but the precipitin, in anaphylaxis to blood corpus- 

 cles a haemolysin. The facts, however, do not confirm Fried- 

 berger's theory. 



