Apbh 24, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



653 



teid, it is generally accepted that successful 

 immunization can be carried out on ani- 

 mals only with substances belonging in 

 this group, variously designated as toxic 

 proteid, proteid derivatives, proteid-like 

 bodies, or tox-albumins, since immunization 

 with such elements as arsenic, with such 

 alkaloids as morphin and strychnin and 

 with glueosides like saponin and solanin, 

 and those found in digitalis and ergot has 

 not been accomplished. PohP indeed 

 claimed to have so treated rabbits with 

 solanin as to render their blood serum more 

 antagonistic to the action of solanin on 

 blood corpuscles than the normal rabbit's 

 serum, but his experiments could not be 

 confirmed by Bashford,' in the light of 

 whose investigations Ehrlich* has become 

 positively convinced that artificial im- 

 munization with glueosides is impossible. 

 When we consider the large number of 

 poisonous glueosides, already isolated with 

 a fair degree of success, and in consider- 

 able chemical purity, with but a few of 

 which experiments have been reported, and 

 then take account of the vast amount of 

 work done on the toxic proteids, it is a 

 fair inference that to deny the possibility 

 of immunization with glueosides is to base 

 a broad generalization upon a relative 

 paucity of data. 



Our own observations in this field ori- 

 ginated with the attempt to immunize ani- 

 mals with extracts of the poisonous fungus 

 Amanita phalloides, the active principle of 

 which had been stated by Kobert^ some 

 years previously to be a tox-albumin power- 

 fully hemolytic for a great variety of cor- 



= Pohl, Arch, internat. de Pharm. et de Ther., 

 1900, 7, p. 1; 1901, 8, p. 437. 



' Bashford, Arch, internat. de Pharm. et de 

 Ther., 1901, 8, p. 101; 9, p. 451. 



* Ehrlich, " Collected Studies on Immunity," 

 New York, 1906, p. 433. 



° Kobert, St. Petersburger med. Wochenschr., 

 1891, 16, pp. 463, 471. 



puscles. We found that saline extracts of 

 the fungi were highly hemolytic as Kobert 

 had stated, and that they produced very 

 definite lesions in animals, including ex- 

 tensive subcutaneous edema, hemorrhages 

 in the serous membranes, a marked degree 

 of fatty degeneration, and a great increase 

 of pigment in the various organs, especially 

 in the spleen. During the treatment of 

 animals with these extracts we experienced 

 no difficulty in producing an active im- 

 munity, in which the animals would with- 

 stand the inoculation of two or three times 

 a fatal dose. The serum from these im- 

 munized animals was antir-hemolytic^ in a 

 dilution of 1/1,000 or even in one of 

 1/5,000. When tested upon animals, one 

 cubic centimeter of this serum would 

 neutralize two or three multiples of a mini- 

 mum fatal dose. The most powerful serum 

 obtained was one in which 1 cubic centi- 

 meter neutralized six or seven times a fatal 

 dose, but this serum contained such a 

 powerful anti-hemolysin that we were led 

 to believe that a serum from large animals 

 more highly immunized might prove of 

 practical value. In a chemical investiga- 

 tion of the fungus in the Pharmacological 

 Laboratory, in association with Dr. AbeP' ' 

 it has since been shown that the Amanita 

 phalloides contains two poisons, one hemo- 

 lji;ic and precipitated by alcohol, the other 

 non-hemolytic and soluble in alcohol. The 

 presence of this latter substance, the 

 Amanita-toxin had already been suspected 

 because of the poisonous character of ex- 

 tracts of the fungus heated to 65° C. to 

 destroy their hemolysin, and we found that 

 Kobert* had made a similar observation, 

 publishing it in an almost inaccessible 



' Ford, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 

 III., No. 2, April, 1906. 



'Abel and Ford, The Journal of Biological 

 Chemistry, Vol. II., No. 4, January, 1907. 



' Kobert, Sitzungsberiehte der naturforschenden 

 Gesellschaft zu Rostock, 1899, p. 26. 



