ANTITOXINS 3I 



authors employed contains only a single poison: 

 there is no reason for assuming the existence of 

 toxoids, inasmuch as the toxic power of the poison 

 is constantly parallel to its neutralizing power for 

 antitoxin. On mixing a certain dose of the toxin 

 either with little or with much antitoxin, complexes 

 of toxin-antitoxin were obtained which varied 

 in their reaction to heat. Moreover, these authors 

 found that their poison absorbs much more anti- 

 toxin than is necessary to destroy its entire toxicity, 

 and forms a stable compound with it. Bordet's con- 

 ception of the toxin-antitoxin reaction thus seems 

 to be very simple. The main difficulty which it 

 encounters is the strict specificity of the combi- 

 nation. However, recent investigations make it 

 probable that the affinity of adsorption is similar 

 to a true chemical affinity, in that both are elective. 

 It is possible, therefore, that the existence of strict 

 specificity may still be found entirely compatible 

 with the adsorption theory. 



