TEIANUS. 65 



for complete neutralization) was added to two c.c. of the toxin, the 

 latter lost nine-tenths of its effect. From these and other experi- 

 ments Madsen reaches the following conclusions : 



1. In cultures of the tetanus bacillus, there is besides tetanospasmin 

 another poison, tetanolysin, for which there is a specific antitoxin, 

 which may be designated as antilysin. 



2. The action of this lysin and its anti-body can be measured with 

 great exactness by methods of color comparison. 



3. Tetanolysin combines with the red blood corpuscles and the 

 combination is preceded by a latent period which depends upon the 

 amount of poison and the temperature. 



4. Investigation shows that tetanolysin presents a complicated 

 neutralization reaction which resembles very closely that of the 

 diphtheria poison. 



5. The substance consists of halves which differ in certain funda- 

 mental properties. One half of the poison consists of three sub- 

 stances, prototoxin, deuterotoxin, and tritotoxin. 



6. The prototoxin makes up only one-third of the quantity of the 

 poison but possesses one-half of the hemolytic action. Like the 

 prototoxin of diphtheria poison, this substance is readily changed to 

 prototoxoid, and in undergoing this transformation it loses its toxic- 

 ity but retains its combining power. 



7. The deuterotoxin makes up one-ninth of the poison but pos- 

 sesses two-fifths of the total hemolytic action. This substance re- 

 sembles the deuterotoxin of the diphtheria poison and is relatively 

 resistant to untoward influences. 



8. The tritotoxin makes up one-fourth of the poison but possesses 

 only one-tenth of the poisonous action. While the prototoxin and 

 deuterotoxin act both under high and low temperatures, the trito- 



_ toxin has no action at a temperature below 10°. Special experi- 

 ments show that the tritotoxin combines with the red blood corpus- 

 cles not only in smaller quantity than the other toxins, but that its 

 toxophorous group is much less powerful than that of the proto- and 

 deuterotoxins. 



9. The second half of the toxin possesses very minute toxicity 

 and is known as toxon. 



10. The most important result of the experiments lies in the de- 

 termination that in tetanolysin, as in diphtheria toxin, there are two 

 groups, a haptophorous group by which the substance combines with 

 antitoxin, and a toxophorous group by which the combination with 

 the red blood corpuscles and the hemolytic action are effected. Of 

 these groups the first one is relatively stable while the latter is easily 

 modified and in this process of modification the toxin becomes a 

 toxoid. 



11. The probabilities are that tetanospasmin has a neutralization 

 structure similar to that possessed by tetanolysin. 



5 



