266 ANAPHYLAXIS 



rational to assume that the foreign proteins act as stimuli 

 to certain cells to produce more of the enzymes necessary 

 to decompose them, so that they may be either built up 

 into cell structure or eliminated as waste. If in this process 

 of splitting up of protein a poison were produced, then the 

 phenomena of "anaphylaxis" could be better understood. 

 As a matter of fact Vaughan and his co-workers have shown 

 that by artificially splitting up proteins from many different 

 sources — animal, vegetable, pathogenic and saprophytic bac- 

 teria — a poison is produced which appears to be the same in 

 all cases and which causes the symptoms characteristic of 

 anaphylaxis. On the basis of these facts it is seen that 

 anaphylaxis is simply another variety of immunity. The 

 specific antibody in this case is an enzyme which decomposes 

 the protein instead of precipitating it. The enzyme must 

 be specific for the protein since these differ in constitution. 

 Vaughan even goes so far as to say that the poison is really 

 the central ring common to all proteins and that they differ 

 only in the lateral groups or side chains attached to this 

 central nucleus. The action of the enzyme in this connec- 

 tion would be to split off the side chains, and since these are 

 the specific parts of the protein, the enzyme must be spe- 

 cific for each protein. The pepsin of the gastric juice and 

 the trypsin of the pancreas split the native proteins only to 

 peptones. As is well known these when injected in suffi- 

 cient quantity give rise to poisonous symptoms, and will 

 also give rise to anaphylaxis under properly spaced injec- 

 tions. They do not poison normally because they are split 

 by the intestinal erepsin to amino-acids and absorbed as 

 such. Whether Vaughan's theory of protein structure is the 

 true one or not remains to be demonstrated. It is not essen- 

 tial to the theory of anaphylaxis above outlined, i. e., a 

 phenomenon due to the action of specific antibodies which are 

 enzymes. On physiological grounds this appears the most 

 rational of the few explanations of anaphylaxis that have 

 been offered and was taught by the author before he had 

 read Vaughan's theory along the same lines. 



On the basis of the author's theory the phenomena of 

 protein immunity and antianaphylaxis may be explained in 



