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^Entered at the Post-Offlce of New York, N.Y., as Second-Class Matter.] 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



Ninth Yeak. 

 Vol. XVII. No. 413. 



NEW YORK, January 2, 1891. 



Single Copies, Ten Cents. 

 $3.50 Pee Year, in Advance. 



A CUEE FOE TETANUS AND DIPHTHERIA.' 



The greatest interest has been aroused Iq scientific circles 

 in Berlin by a paper in the Deutsche medicinische Wochen- 

 schrift" by Behring and Kitasato. These well-known bac- 

 teriologists, who for a long time past have been working in 

 Dr. Koch's Hygienisches Institut, have not only succeeded 

 in producing immunity against diphtheria and tetanus, but 

 also in curing animals already infected by these diseases. 

 Their results are to a great extent self explanatory, aud there 

 is every reason to expect that the same method will be found 

 to be applicable to other infectious diseases. The most re- 

 markable part of their discovery is the fact that the blood of 

 an animal that has been made immune against diphtheria 

 possesses the extraordinary power of destroying the poison 

 formed by the microbe of this disease. This power is also 

 possessed by the serum of such an immune animal, which 

 serum can therefore he used as a curative means on other 

 animals that are suffering from this disease. The same 

 statement holds good for tetanus. 



Before describing in detail these interesting results, it will 

 be well to give a short historical review of some recent 

 bacteriological work which can be regarded as having led up 

 to this discovery. 



Towards the end of 1888, Nuttall," working in Flugge's 

 laboratory at Breslau, discovered that various bacteria are 

 destroyed when mixed with fresh blood or blood-serum, and, 

 further, that this destruction cannot be ascribed to the action 

 of cellular elements, but rather to the fluid part of the blood. 

 This discovery (which really arose from the German criticism 

 of Metschnikoff's phagocyte theory) was soon followed by 

 the work of Buchner^ and Nissen'* on the bacteria-killing 

 power of the cell-free blood-serum. These authors consid- 

 ered that their work necessitated a limitation of the phago- 

 cyte theory, and suggested a new view of the nature of 

 immunity, whether natural or acquired. In other words, 

 they suggested that immunity was conditioned by the bac- 

 teria-killing power of the various body fluids rather than by 

 that of any particular kind of cell. These opinions were 

 rather severely criticised in a paper by Lubarsch " that was 

 published towards the end of last year. Lubarsch empha- 

 sized the fact that while the serum of the rabbit — an animal 

 extremely sensitive to anthrax — has a great power of de- 

 stroying anthrax bacilli, horses' serum has no such power, 



' From Nature, Dec. 11, 1S90. 



- No. 49. Dec. 4, 1890, p. 1113, " I'etier das Zuataudekommen der Diphtherie- 

 Immunltat uud derTetanus-Immunitat bei Thleren,'' 



3 '* Experlmente iiber die bakterienfeladliclien Einflusse des ttilerischeii 

 KSrpers " (Zeitschrlft fur Hygiene, vol. iv. p. 353). 



■i "reber die bakterientodtende Wlrkung des zellentreien Blutserums" 

 (Centralblatt fiir Bakterlologie, vol. v. p. 817, and vol. vl. p. 1). 



' "Zur Kenntniss der bakterienvernlchteuden Elgensohaft des Blutes" 

 (Zeitschrlft fiir Hygiene, vol. vl. p. 4S7). 



6 " tJeber die bakterlenvernlchtendeu Elgenschaften des Blutes und Ihre 

 BeziehuDien zur Immunitat" (Centralblatt fiir Bakterlologie, vol. vi. p. 538). 



although this animal is comparatively refractory to the dis- 

 ease. Again, while on the one hand such eminently patho- 

 genic microbes as the anthrax and cholera bacilli are capable 

 of being destroyed by serum from various animals, several 

 perfectly harmless microbes find blood-serum to be an excel- 

 lent food-medium. Further, though the serum of the rabbit 

 kills anthrax bacilli in a pre-eminent degree, the living 

 blood-plasma of this animal can only do so to an infinitesimal 

 extent. Such considerations suggested to Lubarsch that the 

 bacteria-killing power of the blood-serum was a fact rather 

 of the nature of an epi-phenomenon than an essential factor 

 in the conflict between the organism and the microbe. In 

 May of this year appeared my own work on "Defensive 

 Proteids." ' I gave this name to a new class of proteid 

 bodies, which I found to possess a bacteria-killing power, and 

 which I have obtained from the spleens and lymphatic glands 

 of various animals. This work has a distinct bearing on 

 the foregoing, in that it suggests that the bacteria-killing 

 power of blood-serum is due to minute traces of these 

 substances liberated for the breaking-down of lymphatic 

 cells. The absence of a bacteria-killing power from certain 

 kinds of serum (e.g., horse) and from living blood-plasma 

 (as has been shown for that of the rabbit in regard to 

 anthrax) appears to be connected with the intactness of the 

 leucocytes in these special cases. Further, the fact that I 

 obtained these substances from cells which either are or can 

 become phagocytes, may be taken as an additional proof of 

 Metschnikoff's well known theory. These substances appear 

 to be absent from the normal blood-plasma, or, at any rate, 

 only present in such small quantities that they cannot be 

 separated from it. With blocd of febrile animals, however, 

 the case is different, and from such blood I have been able 

 to isolate a bacteria-killing substance.^ This fact appears 

 to indicate that these substances are actually used by the 

 organism in its reaction against the attack of pathogenic 

 microbes. 



During last summer, while I have been engaged in this 

 work, various other papei's have appeared, which tend to 

 show still more clearly that the bacteria-killing power of the 

 blood-serum (or, if my work be accepted, of defensive pro 

 teids) is of real importance in the production of immunity. 

 Bouchard' was, I think, the first of many authors who have 

 succeeded in showing that the bacteria-destroying power of 

 blood-serum from immune animals is greater than that of 

 normal serum. Bouchard proved this in the case of bacillus 



■ " A Bacterla-kllUng Globulin ■' (Proceedings of the Eoyal Society of Lon- 

 don, vol. xlviil. p. 93), and "The Conflict between the Organism and the 

 Microbe;" Part 2, " Ou Defensive Proteids" (British Medical Journal, July 

 12, 1890.1. 



- " Indications of a Method of Curing Infectious Diseases," read at the 

 Leeds Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 September, 1890. 



3 " Sur I'effet des produits sf crStees par les microbes pathogSnes " (Taris, 

 1890). 



