MICROCOCCUS AUREUS 335 



under artificial conditions of cultivation, and may be sepa- 

 rated from the living organisms by filtration; that when 

 injected into the living animal body its effects upon the 

 tissues are essentially reproductions of those accompanying 

 the growth of the organism itself; that when this action 

 is tested upon particular cells, such as erythrocytes and 

 leukocytes, two distinct properties are exhibited, one a 

 hemolytic, through which the red corpuscles are dissolved, 

 the other a leucocidic, through which the white blood-cor- 

 puscles are destroyed; that the hemolytic and leucocidic 

 properties are distinct from one another, and are due to the 

 activities of two lysins, of which the staphylotoxin is (in 

 part?) composed, and which may be separated from one 

 another by appropriate methods of analysis; that the result 

 of the treatment of animals with gradually increasing non- 

 fatal doses of staphylotoxin is the appearance in the blood 

 of the animals of antibodies (antilysins) that inhibit the 

 action of the toxins (lysins) ; and, finally, that in the serum 

 of certain animals (man and horse) similar antilysins in 

 varying amounts are normally present.^ 



Petersen, Paltchikowsky, Proscher, and others have 

 recently attempted to prepare an antistaphylococcus serum 

 with the following results: The serum of patients recov- 

 ering from severe staphylococcus infections contains pro- 

 tective substances which serve to protect rabbits from twice 

 the fatal dose of a staphylococcus culture. Similarly the 

 serum of immunized rabbits and goats, as shown by the 

 experiments of Petersen, possesses about the same degree 



1 See van de Velde, Annales de I'Institut Pasteur, tome x, p. 580; Krauss 

 Wiener klin. Wochenschrift, 1900, No. 3; Von Lingelsheim, Etiologie und 

 Therapie der Staphylokoken Infektion (monograph), Berlin-Wien, 1900; 

 Neisser and Wechsberg, Zeitschrift fiir Hygiene und Infektionskrankheiten, 

 1901. Bd. xxxvi, S. 299. 



