246 BACTERIA 



ferred immunity. In 1889 and 1890 Hankin and Ogata 

 worked at the subject, and announced the discovery in the 

 blood of animals which had died of anthrax of some sub- 

 stances which appeared to have an antagonistic and neutral- 

 ising effect upon the toxins of anthrax and upon the anthrax 

 bacilli themselves. These substances, they afterwards 

 found, were products of the anthrax bacillus. Behring and 

 Kitasato arrived at much the same results for tetanus and 

 diphtheria. The next step was to isolate these substances, 

 and, separating them from the blood, investigate still further 

 their constitution. A number of workers were soon occu- 

 pied at this task, and since 1891 Buchner, Hankin, the 

 Klemperers, Roux, Sidney Martin, and others have added 

 to our knowledge respecting these toxin-opposing bodies 

 known as antitoxins. In diphtheria, as we have seen, the 

 toxins turned out to be soluble bodies allied to the proteids, 

 albumoses, and an organic acid. Then arose the question 

 of the source of antitoxins. Some believed they were a 

 kind of ultratoxin — bodies of which an early form was a 

 toxin; others held that, as the toxins were products of 

 the bacteria invading the tissues, the antitoxins were of the 

 nature of ferments produced by the resisting tissues. 

 Finally, they came to be looked upon as protective sub- 

 stances produced in the body cells as a result of toxin action, 

 and held in solution in the blood, and there and elsewhere 

 exerting their influence in opposition to the toxins.' The 

 progress of disease is therefore a struggle between the toxins 



' It is impossible here to enter into a detailed consideration of the various" 

 views held with regard to the formation of antitoxins. It is needless to remark 

 that the whole matter is one of abstruse technicality and intricacy. These 

 antitoxic bodies gradually increase in the blood and tissues, and their action 

 falls into two groups : {a) antitoxic^ which counteract the effects of the poison 

 itself ; and {b) antimicrobic , which counteract the effects of the bacillus itself. 

 " In one and the same animal the blood may contain a substance or substances 

 which are both antitoxic and antimicrobic, such, for example, as occurs in the 

 process of the formation of the diphtheria and tetanus antitoxic serums " (Sid- 

 ney Martin). 



