xili] MICROBES OF MALIGNANT ANTHRAX 311 



Roux and Yersin ^ have separated certain chemical 

 products (toxins) from broth cultures, and shown that 

 those products themselves act poisonously in the proportion 

 in which they are injected. Roux and Yersin have also 

 observed in experimental animals, after inoculation with 

 small doses of broth culture or of the diphtheria toxin 

 separated by filtration from broth cultures, the same kind 

 of paralysis as occurs also in human diphtheria in the later 

 stages, that is after the acute symptoms have passed away. 

 Sidney Martin has published an account of the chemical 

 nature of the poisons occurring in the human diphtheritic 

 membrane ; these same poisonous principles (ferment, 

 organic acid, albumoses) were also obtained from albumen 

 cultures of the diphtheria bacilli. Dr. Martin shows that 

 with the chemical products the same diphtheritic paralysis 

 can be produced, and he further shows that this paralysis is 

 due to degeneration of the peripheral nerves. (Reports of 

 the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board, 1891- 

 1892.) According to Roux and Yersin ^ the toxin of broth 

 cultures is a ferment and when injected into guinea-pigs pro- 

 duces the same oedematous hsemorrhagic tumour and death 

 as the living culture. Roux and Yersin ^ have further shown 

 that by growing the diphtheria bacilli in broth under constant 

 supply with fresh oxygen a toxin can be obtained of high 

 degree of virulence, 0-2 gramme being capable of producing 

 a tumour and fatal result in forty-eight hours in one kilo, of 

 guinea-pig. Loffler, Roux and Yersin, and others have 

 therefore justly concluded that in diphtheria we have to 

 deal with a chemical poisoning, the chemical poison being 

 produced by the living bacilli in the diphtheritic membrane 



^ Annales de F IiistitiU Pasteur, December, 1888. 

 " Ibid., June, 1889. 

 ' Ibid., vol. iv., p. 421. 



