35 
ing action on the toxine. This quantity is the greatest in physiologic salt solution, 
which best preserves the cerebral substance in its normal state. If the amount fixed 
by the brain emulsified in normal salt solution be taken as 100, we will have for the 
others about the following proportions: 
If a brain of a guinea pig emulsified in normal salt solution absorbs 100 parts toxine, 
the same brain emulsified in distilled water will absorlj 90 parts toxine; if emulsified 
in 10 per cent salt solution, will absorb 5 parts toxine; if boiled in distilled water, will 
absorb 10 parts toxine. 
The fixation of the toxine by the cerebral substance is not permanent, as has been 
previously shown by Metchnikoff. It diffuses in the liquid of maceration, and this 
diffusion is much more rapid when the liquid exercises a more energetic action upon 
the nervous sulDstance. 
He concluded that the phenomenon of the fixation of the tetanus 
toxine by nervous tissue, in spite of some analogies, can not be likened 
to the action of antitoxin on toxine, because the toxine at first fixed 
by the nervous substance becomes again free in vitro and in vivo. 
The neutral mixture of toxine and nervous substance becomes again 
with time more and more toxic, while, on the contrary, the toxic 
mixture of toxine and antitoxin become with time less toxic. 
Blumenthal and Jakob,® 1898, used a method to free a part of the 
tetanus toxine wliich has been fixed in the central nervous system. 
They concluded that the tetanus poison at the time of the outbreak 
of the symptoms of tetanus is so anchored in the central nervous 
system that it can not be set free by means of subdural infusions of 
antitoxin. 
Ransom^ found that the tetanus toxine as well as the antitoxin is 
taken up from the subcutaneous tissue by means of lymphatic vessels 
and carried to the blood stream. 
After intravenous injection a considerable portion of the toxine as 
well as the antitoxin is carried over into the lymph. In the cerebro- 
spinal fluid, on the other hand, the antitoxin appears in compara- 
tively small amounts and the toxine can not be definitely demon- 
strated. Tetanus antitoxin injected into the subaraclmoid space 
does not cause an increase in the normal, detoxicating power of the 
nerve substance and most all of it quickly passes over into the blood 
stream. 
After injections of the toxine into the central nervous system the 
nervous system becomes toxic itself and loses for a time the property 
of neutralizing the poison. This is not due to adherent cerebro-spinal 
fluid, but rather to the fact that the nerve substance holds the toxine 
fast. 
The disappearance of tetanus toxine from the blood of chickens 
after intravenous injections of small quantities does not depend upon 
« Blumentlial, Ferdinand, and Jakob: Ziir Serumtherapie des Tetanus. Berk klin. 
Woch., 1898. 
^Ransom, F.: Die Vertheilung von Tetannsgift nnd Tetaniisantitoxin in lebenden 
thierischen Korper. Berk Klin. Wocli, vok 38, 1901, pp. 337-340; 373-375. 
