INFECTION AND IMMUNITY. 407 



This was particularly the case when the anthrax bacillus 

 was employed. 



Grohmann seems to have appreciated the significance 

 of this observation, though he took no steps to study it 

 more closely. He remarks that the system probably 

 possesses, in the plasma of the blood, a body having 

 disinfectant properties (foe. cit., pp. 6 and 33). This 

 work, however, was not conducted according to the 

 more exact methods of modern bacteriological research, 

 so that the complete demonstration of this phenomenon 

 must be attributed to Nuttall. 



Since the publication of Nuttall's work his results 

 have received confirmation from all sides. Fodor,' 

 Buchner," Lubarsch,' Nissen,* Stern,' Prudden,^ Charrin 

 and Roger,'' and others have continued in the same 

 line, and have all made practically the same observa- 

 tion. , 



After the demonstration by Nuttall that the serum of 

 the blood was directly detrimental to the vitality of 

 certain pathogenic bacteria, it became the work of a 

 number of investigators to determine to which element 

 of the serum this property is due, or if it is a function 

 of the serum only as a whole. 



In the course of Buchner's experiments it was de- 

 monstrated that the serum was robbed of this power by 

 an exposure to a temperature of 55° C. for half an 

 hour ; that its efficacy as a germicide was not diminished 

 by alternate freezing and thawing ; that by dialysis 



' Centr. f. Bakteriologie u. Parasitenknnde, 1890, vol. vii., No. 24. 

 2 Archiv filr Hygiene, 1890, vol x. parts 1 and 2. 



5 Centr. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenkunde, 1SS9, vol. vi., No. 18. 

 i Zeitschr. fur Hygiene, 1889, vol. vi. part 3. 



6 Zeitschr. fur klin. Med., 1890, vol. viii. parts 1 and 2. 

 « N. Y. Med. Record, 1890, vol. xxxvii., pp. 85, 86. 



' Soc. de Biol, de Paris. 



