42 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE BACTERIAL POISONS. 



solved in water and injected intravenously into dogs, cause vomiting 

 and bloody diarrhoea; while post-mortem examination shows ecchy- 

 moses in the stomach and intestines. It was then believed that the 

 " putrid poison " of Panum had been isolated, and that it was iden- 

 tical with "sepsin." However, further investigations showed that 

 this was not true, and it is by no means certain that the poisonous 

 effects obtained by Bergmann and Schmiedeberg were due to the 

 crystals seen by them in their preparation, inasmuch as these crystals 

 were never completely isolated. 



Recently Levy, working under Schmiedeberg's directions, has 

 made further study of putrid yeast, in which he found bacilli re- 

 sembling those of mouse septicemia and the proteus vulgaris. Dogs 

 were treated with intravenous injections of liquefied gelatin cultures 

 of the proteus, and symptoms similar to those formerly attributed to 

 " sepsin " followed. The cultures were precipitated with absolute 

 alcohol, and the resulting albuminous precipitate caused the same 

 symptoms as the cultures in mice, rabbits and dogs. Levy also in- 

 vestigated cases of meat poisoning due to infection with the proteus. 

 The keeper of a restaurant and some of his guests suffered from a 

 most violent purging, which in the case of the host terminated 

 fatally. In the vomited matter, in the stools, and in the bottom of 

 the ice-box in which the meat was kept, the proteus was found, and 

 cultures of it produced the symptoms of sepsin poisoning in animals. 

 Levy concludes that the proteus is the generator of sepsin. If this 

 conclusion be correct, it follows that the effects observed by Berg- 

 mann and Schmiedeberg were not due to the crystals obtained by 

 them, but to other substances from which the crystals had not been 

 separated. 



In 1869 Ziilzer and Sonnenschein obtained from decomposing 

 meat extracts a nitrogenous base which, both in its chemical reac- 

 tions and physiological effects, resembles atropin and hyoscyamin. 

 When injected under the skin of animals this substance produces 

 dilatation of the pupils, paralysis of the muscles of the intestines, and 

 acceleration of the heart beat ; but its action is uncertain and incon- 

 stant. A similar substance has been obtained from the bodies of 

 those who have died from typhoid fever, and it is possible that the 

 belladonna-like delirium which frequently characterizes the later 

 stage of this disease is due to the ante-mortem generation of this or a 

 similar poison within the body. 



During the eighth decade of the nineteenth century certain toxi- 

 cologists became interested in the alkaloidal reactions obtained some- 

 times in putrefying tissue. The most prominent of these was the 

 Italian, Selmi, who suggested the name " ptomain," and whose re- 

 searches furnished us with valuable information, and, what is prob- 

 ably of more importance, gave an impetus to the study of the 

 chemistry of putrefactive changes, which has been productive of 



