124 
JAMES LAW, 
Second: In the more fatal cases the exposure to infection 
was made so early as to forbid the idea that the system had 
had time to have completely rid itself of the poisonous chemi¬ 
cal products, and much less to have risen over their profound¬ 
ly depressing effects. The intervals of four, eight and ten 
days respectively between the injection of large doses of the 
chemical poisons and exposure to infection suggests the pres¬ 
ence of that toxic effect of the ptomaines which lays the sys¬ 
tem open to the microphyte. One hardly wonders that these 
subjects died in periods varying from thirteen to nineteen 
days thereafter. It is noticeable that the two pigs that es¬ 
caped the infection, and the six that survived 29, 31, 34, 83, 98 
and 113 days respectively, were those that had at once had a 
small amount of the sterilized virus, 19 cc. and 20 cc., and 
that had exposure to infection delayed longer (15, 22 and 
57 days) after such injections had been made. It may be 
that immunity by this means is not safely attainable on a large 
scale, yet even this dreadful table bears testimony to the oper¬ 
ation of the principle ol protection by chemical products of 
the germ, however unfavorable the conditions. The energy 
of the disease was abated, and the acute disease was exchanged 
for the sub-acute and chronic form in all cases in which the 
sterilized lymph was moderate in amount, and the subsequent 
exposure to infection delayed. 
Third : It is to be noted that in the case of these experi¬ 
mental pigs the test was a severe one. The ingestion of the 
diseased bowels ten days alter the pigs had been injected with 
the prostrating ptomaines, and followed by exposure in an in¬ 
fected pen, was a test of extraordinary severity. Again in 
the other cases the reporters say that the infection in the pens 
was ususually intense, the experimental pigs being constantly 
surrounded by the sick and dying, at one time fifteen pigs 
dying in three weeks, and at another “ pigs died almost every 
day ” in the infected pen. 
Taken all in all these experiments sustain the doctrine of 
protection by the ptomaines, although they do not show a 
large percentage of survivors. 
