Abstract
WHEN it was established beyond dispute or cavil that the serum obtained from animals, immunised against bacterial infections and intoxications, possesses in a marked degree antitoxic powers—as distinguished from antibiotic powers—and that such serum when mixed in a test-tube with the bacterial poison in question will, so to speak, neutralise the toxic effects of such poison, however deadly, it was merely a question of time, opportunity, and patience that attempts would be made to extend the principle of serum-immunisation to other, i.e. non-bacterial, poisons. Ehrlich was the first to show us the way. He gradually accustomed animals to with stand comparatively large doses of abrine, ricine, and robine, three vegetable toxines, all belonging to the group of proteines, reacting as albumoses or globulines. In that manner he produced in the animals a relative immunity, or perhaps, more correctly, a tolerance. He found that though subcutaneous inoculations lead to better results, that this immunity can be brought about also by feeding. In whatever way the animal is prepared, its serum eventually acquires specific antitoxic, immunis ing, and curative properties. It was thus demonstrated that the wonderful discovery of Behring and Kitasato—pfor which Behring, however, claims the sole credit—has a scope much wider than at first was dreamt of. Behring himself, to begin with, explained the action of the serum as antibiotic or germicidal; but it soon became evident that, though when injected into the animal body it causes the destruction and death of the infective pathogenic organisms, nevertheless its chief action is “vitally” antitoxic. For working with the tetanus toxine alone, separated from the bacilli which produced it, its deadly effects can be readily neutralised by a few cubic centimetres of a powerful serum. And if we remember that ˙23 milligram of tetano-toxine would represent the fatal dose for a human being weighing 70 kilogrammes, then we can get an idea as to what extraordinary changes must have been produced in the serum, or rather in the blood and tissues, of the immunised animal, to enable its serum instan taneously to remove the lethal effect of the toxine. The only poison comparable to tetano-toxine in virulence and rapidity of action is cobra poison, and it also resembles chemically the bacterial toxines, reacting as an albumose, though for the sake of accuracy it must be mentioned, that the poison of tetanus has been clearly shown by Brieger, Colin, and Sidney Martin not to be an album inous body, and that possibly most of the bacterial toxines may turn out not to be albuminous substances. Still, so far as our present knowledge reaches, cobra poison and other snake venoms are chemically closely allied and analogous to the “toxalbumins” of bacteria.
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K., A. A Rational Cure for Snake-Bite. Nature 52, 620–622 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/052620a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/052620a0