Serums, vaccines and toxines in treatment and diagnosis.

  • William Cecil Bosanquet
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Serums, vaccines and toxines in treatment and diagnosis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    under favourable circumstances, and then either to kill the actual germs by the addition of chloroform or some other volatile antiseptic, or, better, to strain them off by passing the fluid through a porcelain filter, by which means the poison is obtained free from the dead bodies of the bacteria. It may be easily understood that such a fluid is very com- plex in character, containing not oidy the poisons for whieh search is to lie made, but also much unaltered nutrient medium, along with by-products of the growth of germs — excretory, &c.—which are possibly harmless substances. Further, it is not possible in the case of all organisms to obtain soluble toxines in ordinary nutrient media. Some bacteria refuse to part with their toxines under these circumstances, whereas the dead bodies of the germs them- selves may have a poisonous action it' injected into animals (B. typhosus, ifec). Such species are said to contain intracellular toxines. It does not seem possible that under circumstances of disease these poisons ran remain entirely within the bodies of the parasites, as it is necessary that they should be brought into contact with the cells forming the tissues of the host in order that their poisonous effects may be manifested. Hence it must be concluded that within living animals these toxines, like the extra- cellular variety, pass out of the bacteria into the surround- ing vital fluids, whereas in artificial culture-media the] remain inside the organisms; in other words, the toxines are needed to enable the germs to carry on their war with the living tissues when they are parasitic, but are unnecessary when suitable food of a non-resistant nature is provided, and therefore under the latter conditions they are not formed in any abundance. It has, however, been suggested that the escape of the toxines from the body of the bacteria is effected by the destruction and disintegration of many of the germs by the tissues of the infected animal. To this it might be objected that infection must be produced by the entrance of a very small number of germs ; and it seems unlikely that any large amount of poison would !»■