568 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 119. 



have sacrificed their lives in searching for 

 the poisons of dangerous bacteria and their 

 antitoxins ? Is it inhumanity which spurs 

 them on at imminent personal risk in their 

 efiforts, which are daily yielding new and 

 brilliant results to find means for control- 

 ling a disease which annually causes one- 

 seventh of the deaths of the population of 

 the globe? 



However, it is not only for protection 

 against the two diseases, tetanus and diph- 

 theria, just mentioned, that antitoxic serums 

 can be prepared. Recent investigations 

 have proved that typhoid fever, cholera, 

 anthrax, the plague, etc., are amenable to 

 similar treatment and in the same depart- 

 ment in this city that chemical vaccina- 

 tion received its first impetus, but by 

 workers in the Biochemic laboratory it 

 has been demonstrated that two diseases 

 that cause such losses to the farmers of the 

 country may be controlled by antitoxic se- 

 rums. Investigators in this same labora- 

 tory have shown also that a substance anti- 

 toxic to tuberculosis can be produced in 

 the serum of animals when they are prop- 

 erly treated, which has undoubted and pro- 

 nounced effect in checking experimental 

 tuberculosis in small animals. "When we 

 inquire the character of these antitoxins we 

 are almost as yeb more in the dark than in 

 our efforts to discover the exact nature of 

 the poisons of germs. However, it has 

 been possible to separate in a fairly pure 

 form the antitoxic principle from diphtheria 

 serum, a minute amount of which will con- 

 fer immunity and the antitoxic principle of 

 swine plague, .002 g. of which has been 

 found to cure animals weighing 1 pound, 

 and even a solid antitoxic-like substance 

 for tuberculosis has been obtained in an im- 

 pure form. All these solid antitoxic prin- 

 ciples resemble each other very closely in 

 their chemical tests and methods of separa- 

 tion showing albuminoid reactions, but in 

 their curative properties they are totally 



independent the one of the other. The 

 diphtheria antitoxic serum does not cure 

 tetanus; the swine plague serum does not 

 cure the cholera. 



In the case of the venom of serpents it 

 has been found that repeated injections will 

 make the serum of an animal antitoxic and 

 curative against other venoms. The anti- 

 toxic serum produced by the cobra venom 

 will protect animals and men against the bite 

 of the rattlesnake as well as its own bite. It 

 would seem from this that there is a very 

 close relationship between the poisons of 

 venomous snakes and that immunity to one 

 also gives protection from the other. It ap- 

 pears very probable also that the poisons of 

 germs belonging to the same genus will be 

 closely allied and that an antitoxin for one 

 will also be an antitoxin for the other. In 

 fact, it has been demonstrated that the prod- 

 ucts of the bacillus coli communis will 

 protect animals from the typhoid germ to 

 which it is closely allied. The same effect 

 will probably be found with many other 

 diseases where the germs are related. 



The diflBculty of separating these anti- 

 toxins completely from the other constitu- 

 ents of the blood has made it impossible as 

 yet to obtain positive information as to 

 their true chemical character. 



As to their action in producing immunity 

 one theory is that they directly neutralize 

 the poisons which the germs produce, but 

 this does not seem to be substantiated by 

 experiment. 



Another theory proposed first by Stern- 

 berg, then by Metchinkoff, ascribes im- 

 munity to the action of the white blood 

 corpuscles upon the bacteria, while the third 

 theory, and the one which seems most ten- 

 able in view of actual results, is that the 

 antitoxic principle partakes of the nature of 

 an unorganized ferment like diastase, and 

 that its action in the body, with the aid of 

 the leucocytes, suflQces to render innocuous 

 the poisons of the particular germs. 



