ANAPHYLAXIS OR HYPERSUSCEPTIBILITY 301 



Such anaphylaxis has no reference whatever to the condition of the 

 father, and is not transmitted by the milk. 



THEORIES CONCERNING ANAPHYLAXIS 



Our present knowledge of anaphylaxis is largely empirical. We are 

 not yet in a position to correlate the many data gained experimentally 

 into a theory which offers anything like a satisfactory explanation for 

 all the phenomena observed. Nevertheless, a number of hypotheses 

 have been advanced which deserve serious consideration, since they are 

 experimentally supported and may serve as points of departure for 

 future research. 



One of the earliest ideas advanced was based upon the Ehrlich theory 

 of receptor overproduction by tissue cells during immunization. It was 

 suggested that hypersusceptibility might well be due to the stimulation 

 of new specific receptors which as yet remained sessile upon the body 

 cells instead of having been thrown off into the blood stream. As a 

 consequence, the cells, having an affinity for more of the toxic substance 

 of the antigen than they possessed normally, had become more vulnerable. 

 This opinion, however, is hardly tenable, in face of the facts of passive 

 anaphylaxis, in which, we have seen, the hypersusceptibility may be 

 transmitted with the serum of the sensitized individual. 



V. Pirquet and Schick,' as well as many other observers, have re- 

 garded the anaphylactic process as analogous to other immune reactions, 

 and believe that an antigen in the serum first injected produces a specific 

 antibody. The reaction between these two substances following the 

 second injection gives rise to the anaphylactic symptoms. The essen- 

 tial feature of this opinion is the assumption that the substance which 

 sensitizes after the first injection is identical with that which exerts the 

 anaphylactic injury after reinjection. 



Wolff-Eisner^ has expressed a belief which has found much experi- 

 mental support in the hands of Vaughan and Wheeler. ^ Wolff-Eisner 

 holds that all cells and proteids contain a toxic substance which is 

 characterized by its inability to produce a neutralizing antibody when 

 injected into animals. The first injection produces a lysin for the 

 proteid injected, which possesses the power of liberating such poisons 

 from the complex molecule. A second injection is followed, conse- 



1 V. Pirquet xmd Schick, loc. oit. 



» Wolf-msner, Berl. kli^, Wpph., 1904, 



