218 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Mar., 1899. 
From what I have said you will see that I do not think the particular case 
jn question has any special bearing on the subject of toxins or anti-toxins. 
Will you, however, please thank Inspector Haylock for his suggestion, and 
explain my view of the case to him? Perhaps if I am wrong in any point of 
local circumstance or detail he will kindly put me right. ; 
Now that we have got upon the subject of toxins and anti-toxins in their 
connection with Texas fever, I will endeavour to give you a sketch of what E 
am now trying to do. I have rather shunned writing to you about it on 
account of the inevitable prolixity it involves. 
The first two subjects have nothing to do with the toxin question, but I 
think I may as well mention them here. 
1. I am endeavouring to ascertain if, by inoculating from bullock to 
bullock through a series of eight or nine, the virulence is increased as 
suggested in Tidswell’s report. I injected A with recovered blood; and when 
he reacted (105 or over), B; and when B reacted, C; and so on—using in each 
ease blood taken during the height of the inoculation fever. So far I have got 
to the seventh remove, and I have not had one really severe case amongst the lot, 
though they have each gone to 105 or over (maximum 106-4). There certainly 
is no evidence that the blood is becoming enforced in virulence by this continual 
transference. 
2. The second point is to ascertain if blood taken during the height of the 
fever is after all so much more “virulent” than “recovered” blood. The 
weakest point in our present system is that “recovered” blood, whilst some- 
times setting up excessive reaction, very frequently fails to produce any 
reaction at all. This leads to much disappointment and dissatistaction. The 
blood taken during the height of the fever is certainly more uniformly reliable 
in producing reaction, and I want to ascertain if we can safely recommend 
blood taken during the fever set up by inoculation to be used instead of 
“recovered’’ blood. Sofar the results obtained at Westwood are very favourable. 
It has never failed to produce sufficient reaction, aud has never produced a severe 
ease. Haylock, at Mackay, informs me that he has, at my suggestion and with 
the consent of the owner, inoculated a dairy herd of thirty or forty head with 
virulent biood from a typical case of natural Texas fever, and all recovered. 
These results are in marked contrast to those obtained in my earlier work at 
Hughenden, where the conditions at the time were horribly unfavourable—an 
open yard without shelter in the middle of summer in a severe drought, and 
two miles to travel to water. J am now inclined to think that the conditions, 
rather than the methods adopted, may have been responsible to a large extent 
for the severity of the results in that experiment. Of a series of seven, 
inoculated consecutively from one to another at Hughenden, as you may 
remember, the first and the sixth of the series died, and the others were 
horribly ill. 
T am anxious, if possible, to obviate the disappointments and failures, and 
remove the more or less haphazard sort of element which the uncertain and 
irregular action of “ recovered” blood involves. 
3. The third point I am working at is to find a means of controlling or 
eounteracting the effect of virulent blood at pleasure—on the lines of “serum 
therapy.” ; 
With “virulent ”’ blood as a sure inoculating agent in one hand, and such 
a controlling or counteracting agent in the other, we should be able to go to 
work on all classes of cattle with certainty and safety. 
Now, I think there are perfectly good grounds for believing that an 
‘immune animal differs from a susceptible one essentially in the fact that it 
contains something in its blood which the susceptible one does not. This 
something protects the animal that has it. Let us for convenience call this 
something an anti-toxin. 
A toxin is, as you know, generated by the vital activity of a micro-organism 
in a suitable medium—e.y., living bullock’s blood. An anti-towin is generated 
(as Nature’s antidote to the toxin), in and by the blood and tissues of the living 
