Pathogenic Bacteria

,So ' PATHOGENIC BACTERIA.

ninne to serpent's venom, contains some normal antitoxin,
but only in small amount1 Fischl and v. Wunscliheim
found a small amount of a protecting substance in the
blood of newborn infants, which prevented the opera-
tion of a fatal dose of diphtheria toxin upon guinea-
pigs.2

Bolton3and the author have found some antitoxicity to
diphtheria present in the blood of normal (not experi-
mentally immunized) horses.

The origin of the antitoxin is a very important and
interesting question. Is it in the blood, or in all the
body juices? Does it come from the leucocytes? Dzerj-
gowsky 4 has estimated the quantity of antitoxin con-
tained in the blood and organs of horses immunized
against diphtheria. Of the constituents of the blood he
found (i) the fibrin has no antitoxic power; (2). serum
obtained normally and that got by expression from the
clot, from the plasma of the same blood, have an equal
antitoxic power; (3) the clot from the plasma, therefore,
does not retain the active principle; (4) the plasma and
the serum have an equal antitoxic power; (5) the red cor-
puscles, compared with the plasma, contain traces only
of antitoxin; (6) serum containing the juice of the leuco-
cytes is less rich in antitoxin than the plasma; (7) the
extract of the leucocytes contains relatively little anti-
toxin, and the leucocytes themselves traces or none at all.
Hence the white blood-corpuscles cannot be the place
where the antitoxin is formed. The serous liquids con-
tained in organs, such as the Graafian follicles, etc., con-
tain as much antitoxin as the blood-serum—none of the
organs contain as much of the antitoxin as the blood
itself.

Dzerjgowsky is of the opinion, held probably by a

1 Ann. de Thut. Pasteur, x., 12.

8 Ztitschrift fir Htilkimde, 1895, xvi., 429-482.

3 Jour, of Experimental Medicine, vol. i., No. 3 July 1896

'Imfer-