Lectures on chemical pathology in its relation to practical medicine : delivered at the University and Bellevue Medical School, New York City / by C.A. Herter.

Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lectures on chemical pathology in its relation to practical medicine : delivered at the University and Bellevue Medical School, New York City / by C.A. Herter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    magnet. This idea of the nature of the antitoxin has been applied also to the agglutinative and bactericidal properties of the blood. Attractive as is this hypothesis, I do not think we should commit ourselves to it at present, for there are some recent observations which speak rather in favour of a material separable antitoxic substance than for the idea that the antitoxic property depends on a peculiar physical state of proteid substance. The most reasonable view of the agglutinative property seems to me that of Bordet, who contends that there is an agglutinating agent (‘ agglutinine ’) which acts upon an agglutinable substance (‘substance agglutin^e’), and that the reaction occurs not alone with bacteria but in dead material, such as dead bacteria, casein, and various precipitates. There is no reason to believe that the agglutinating pro- perty is in any way connected with the flagella of bacteria. Neither have we sufficient reason to believe that agglutina- tion is a specific property connected with a state of immunity. There is no definite relation between this property and the bactericidal action of the serum. Moreover, we have to relinquish the idea that agglutination in infectious diseases is a phenomenon of a strictly homologous nature, since it is true, for example, that typhoid bacilli are clumped by diphtheria antitoxin as well as by typhoid serum. From what has been said it must be plain that the origin of the agglutinating power of the blood is still obscure. The property is doubtless given the blood as the result of cell activities, and probably, as in the case of the bacteriolytic powers, through the passage of certain substances from the cells of the body, including the leucocytes, into the blood. The antitoxic action of the organism—that is, the ability of the body to produce a substance or substances capable under certain conditions of neutralising the injurious action of bacterial toxins—is certainly one of the most remarkable chemical defences of the animal body against disease. Some animals produce antitoxic substances naturally, others only under certain special conditions. It is impossible here to enter into a full discussion of the nature of the antitoxic defences of the body. Certain features of this defence may, however, bo briefiy reviewed. It is now well known that an animal inoculated with pathogenic bacteria, or poisoned with the products of such bacteria, is capable of developing in time an immunity against the harmful action of the
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