37 
V 
by general tetanus. We. are not yet able to decide whether the 
tetanus toxine can pass from the peripheral neuron to a sensory neuron 
'wdth which it is connected, or if the contractions are to be attributed 
to the action of the toxine upon the one or the other of those cellular 
elements. 
In the absorption of the toxine it is necessary to consider not only 
the number of absorbing elements, but also the concentration of the 
solution of the toxine, for this concentration is always much more con- 
siderable at the point of inoculation than in other regions, where the 
toxine only diffuses in the mass of blood. This preponderating ab- 
sorption by the nerve fibers at the inoculated region explains why the 
injection at several points of the body of a nonfatal dose of the toxine 
provokes the appearance of tetanus earlier and more severe!}" than 
inoculation at a single point. When, instead of injecting the toxine 
under the skin or into the muscle, it is introduced directly into a 
viscus, the symptoms of tetanus appear only when the motor nerves 
are bathed in the toxine circulating in the blood. 
In a later paper Marie and Morax® found that the central nerve sub- 
stance of mammals, which possesses the power of neutralizing tetanus 
toxine, loses its power almost completely by drying in a vacuum. 
Some brain of a guinea pig finely bruised up is exposed under a vacuum 
where it loses about three-fourths of its weight. When they endeav- 
ored to repeat the experiments of Wassermann with this cerebral 
powder it was found that the nervous tissue had lost 97 per cent of its 
fixative power. This fixative power is not influenced by a dry heat 
of 60°, 100°, or 126° C. It is known, on the other hand, that the dry- 
ing of antitetanic serum causes slight modification. The phenomenon 
of Wassermann would not seem, then, to be similar to the 'antitoxic 
action of specific sera. 
The work of Meyer and Ransom ^ was done about the same time 
as the work referred to above by Morax and Marie, but not published 
till July, 1903. They found that the toxine is carriecj toward the 
centers by the motor nerves, and that this is the only way for the 
poison to reach the central nervous system. The toxme absorption 
by the nerve is dependent upon the integrity of the axis cylinder. 
A normal nerve retams the toxine for an hour and a half after intra- 
muscular mjection, a torn nerve about twenty-four hours; but if the 
nerve is degenerated it does not absorb the poison till about six hours 
later. If the nerve be cut before inoculation, there is no toxme in 
the proximal portion, but it is present in the distal portion. The 
toxine therefore enters the nerve through the muscle plates and not 
“Morax, Y., and Marie, A.: Note sur les proprietes fixatrices de la substance cere- 
brale dessechee. Bull de I’lnst. Pasteur, vol. 1, 1903, p. 41. 
Meyer, H., and Bansom, Fred.: Untersuchungen liber den Tetanus. Arch. f. 
exper. Path. u. Pharm., vol. 49, 1903. 
