TETANUS. 67 



vitro, was necessary for complete neutralization. When the toxin in 

 this amount was injected intravenously and the corresponding amount 

 of antitoxin injected into the same vein of the opposite ear within 

 two minutes, the animals invariably died of tetanus. In order to save 

 his animals treated with this amount of toxin it was found necessary 

 to nearly double the dose of antitoxin when injected within two 

 minutes ; while if four minutes elapsed between the injection of the 

 toxin and the antitoxin, six times the quantity necessary for neutrali- 

 zation in vitro was required, and when this time was extended to 

 one hour, twenty-four times this amount was necessary. Of course, 

 in the disease the toxin is generated slowly and in relatively small 

 amounts; therefore, the proportion between toxin and antitoxin 

 necessary to neutralize the effects of the former is not found to be so 

 great. The same experimenter demonstrated that when tetanus is 

 induced by inoculation with the bacillus, the antitoxin may, experi- 

 mentally at least, serve as a curative agent. He has also shown that 

 animals treated with very small quantities of tetanus toxin may die 

 of marasmus, and thus there may be such a thing as tetanus sitie 

 tekmo. This has been observed in some other infectious diseases. 



Wassermann and Takaki, * have shown that tetanotoxin combines 

 with nervous tissue, forming a compound which, when injected into 

 susceptible animals, is found to be inert. They prepared a solution 

 of tetanotoxin, to which an equal part of glycerin was added for pres- 

 ervation purposes. This solution was of such strength that one 

 thousandth of a cubic centimeter sufficed to kill mice in the course of 

 three days. Quantities of this solution, containing from one to ten 

 fatal doses were rubbed up into emulsions with the substance of the 

 spinal cord or brain, and this mixture was injected subcutaneously 

 into mice. As a control, equal quantities of tissue from the liver, 

 kidney, spleen, and bone marrow were mixed in the same way with 

 the tetanotoxin and likewise injected into mice. As a further control, 

 corresponding amounts of tetanus poison without admixture with any 

 tissue were injected. In the preparation of the emulsions the organs 

 were taken from animals immediately after death and rubbed up in 

 a mortar with physiological salt solution. For the cord from a 

 guinea-pig, 3 c.c. of salt solution were used, and for the brain from 

 the same animal, 10 c.c. were employed. By these experiments it 

 was conclusively demonstrated that the normal cord and brain form 

 an inert compound with the toxin of tetanus, while none of the other 

 organs has any such effect. It was found from about two hundred 

 experiments that one cubic centimeter of the brain emulsion neutral- 

 izes t«n fatal doses of the tetanus toxin, and has a marked inhibitory 

 action on several times this amount. The antitoxic action of the 

 cord was found to be less marked than that of the brain substance. 

 This is somewhat unexpected, inasmuch as the symptoms manifested 

 ' Berliner Uinische Wochensehrifi, 35, 1898. 



