Serum-therapy in the light of the most recent investigations / by Frederick W. Stetson.

  • Stetson, Frederick W.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Serum-therapy in the light of the most recent investigations / by Frederick W. Stetson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    or, as they are often termed when produced m processes of decomposition outside of the system, ptomaines. It is well recognized that bacteria are the agencies concerned in the production of many, if not all, pto- maines ; and many of these ptomaines have been care- fully studied and found to possess toxic properties in varying degrees. For illustration, we have tyrotoxi- con, a poison obtained from cheese by Vaughan, cada- verine and jDutrescine, obtained from cultures of the cholera bacillus, typhotoxine, from the typhoid bacillus, tetanine, obtained from the bacillus of tetanus by Brieger, and an alkaloid from a culture of anthrax by Martin. These are poisonous alkaloids of knowm chemical composition produced by bacteria; but whether they are the specific toxines causing the dis- eases with which the bacteria are associated has not been proved. Still, it is fairly probable that these or similar alkaloids are the toxines concerned in certain diseases. In the same way. other toxines may l^e fermentf^, and others of proteid nature, or toxalbumins; since we know that in other instances bacteria produce both of these classes of substances, Brieger and Frankel have isolated a toxine from culture of the Klebs-Loffier bacillus of diphtheria, which they regarded at one time as a toxalbumin, but which Brieger regards now as non-proteid. However, other properties of the toxine of diph theria are definitely known. It is more or less unsta- ble ; heated in solution for several hours at 60° C. it loses almost wholly its toxicity. Exposure to air and light also weakens it, but drying renders it more stable. It may be precipitated from a filtered culture