On Immunity/ with Special Reference to Cell Life. 435 



The deduction is, that in this case, a chemical union between the 

 brain substance and the tetanus toxine had taken place, and this was 

 of so firm a nature that on introduction into the body the union was 

 not broken up and therefore the toxine remained innocuous. The brain 

 of the normal animal had, in keeping with my theory, acted exactly 

 like a real antitoxine. There are present in the brain, i.e., in the 

 ganglion cells, tetanophile protoplasmic groups, which unite themselves 

 with the toxine. The presence of such groups is the necessary pre- 

 liminary and cause of the poisonous action of the tetanus toxine in the 

 living animal. That the process here was not one of simple absorp- 

 tion is proved by the fact that, if the group concerned was destroyed 

 by heat, the brain substance became as incapable of removing the 

 toxine as an emulsion of any other organ of the guinea-pig. 



As has been said, the possession of a toxophile group by the cell is the 

 necessary preliminary and cause of the poisonous action of the toxine. 

 This can be most sharply demonstrated in the case of certain blood 

 poisons, viz., the' hsemolysines, which exercise a solvent action only 

 on such red blood corpuscles as are able to unite chemically with 

 them. The union with the red corpuscles can be proved, and one 

 has here the great advantage of dealing with living and intact red 

 blood cells instead of broken-down cellular material. Under these 

 conditions it is easy to determine the quantitative relations of the 

 union. If we now regard the action of the toxines with which we are 

 concerned in accordance with the views we have just been discussing, 

 we are obliged to conclude that these are only in a position to act 

 prejudicially on the organism if they are able, by means of their hapto- 

 phore groups, to anchor themselves to the side-chains of the cells of 

 organs essential to life. If the cells of these organs lack side-chains 

 fitted to unite with them, the toxophore group cannot become fixed 

 to the cell, which therefore suffers no injury, i.e., the organism is 

 naturally immune. One of the most important forms of natural im- 

 munity is based upon the circumstance, that in certain animals the 

 organs essential to life are lacking in those haptophore groups which 

 seize upon definite toxines. If, for example, the ptomaine occurring in 

 sausages, which for man, monkeys, and rabbits is toxic in exces- 

 sively minute doses, is for the dog harmless in quite large quantities, 

 this is because, the binding haptophore groups being wanting, the 

 ptomaine cannot, in the dog, enter into direct relation with organs 

 essential to life. We see, then, that the haptophore groups act 

 especially in bringing definite areas of the cell within the sphere of 

 influence of the toxophore group. In the behaviour of the haptophore 

 and toxophore groups there exists a difference essentially great, as we 

 have already pointed out when referring to the work of Donitz and 

 Heymans. The haptophore group exercises its activity immediately 

 after injection into the organism, while in all toxines — with the, perhaps. 



