Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The surgery of the head and neck / by Levi Cooper Lane. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![putrefying animal body, and yielding an alkaloid reaction, it is named a cadaveric alkaloid. Some ]>tomaines are ])oisonous, others are harmless. Some are the analogues of vegetal^Ie alka- loids, viz., of atropine, nicotine, morphine, strychnine, etc. Many ptomaines, when introduced into the animal body, have the same effect as do their bacterial progenitors. A second agent which originates directly or indirectly from bacteria, is the toxin. This is thought to be set free from the bodies of degenerating microbes; or in the changes which bac- teria induce in the tissues, toxins may be generated. Some of these, as the tetanus-toxin, are intensely poisonous, and are rapidly absorbed. Bacteria generate and excrete another sub- stance, akin to a ferment, which, acting on the cells of the con- taining tissue, produces a substance named toxalbumen, which may act on the body as a poison. This may be produced in the laboratory; it gives the reactions of albumen, and is not alkaline. Another important product of bacteria is that which is named antitoxin. The origin of antitoxins has not been settled beyond question; possibly instead of arising from bacteria, antitoxins may originate in the cells of the body in which the bacteria are lodged. Should the origin be in the parasite, then bacteria have the double endowment of producing poisons and their counter-poisons. The toxins and antitoxins are procured in isolation by the filtration of bacterial cultures: Thus, to obtain the toxins, a culture containing them is placed in a cylinder of porcelain, kaolin or asbestos, when the toxin containing serum will j)a.ss through the wall, while the bacteria will remain in the scrum. The .serum which has transuded is next treated with chemical agents, and the toxin is thus obtained. The antitoxins are procured by filtering through a specially-constructed filter the serum of animals which liave been rendered immune. By immunity is meant that the body of man or an animal is insusceptible to disease; and the immunity may exi.st in reference to more than one disease. An exemplification of immunity, long known, is that furnished by vaccine virus against variola. The bacteriologist has furnished an immunizing agent against diph- theria, hydrophobia, tetanus, glanders, anthrax, and })neumonia; and such agent may act in a two-fold manner, viz., preventively, it may render the subject immune, or proof against the disease. or if he l)e already affected with the disease, the latter may be rendered milder by the immunizing agent. And such treatinent is named orrhotherapy. or serum-therapy. The enthu.siastic claims made for serum-therapy, for establishment. re(iuire to be](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21215406_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
