Remarks upon the pneumotoxin / by Allan MacFadyen.

  • Macfayden, Allan, 1860-1907
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Remarks upon the pneumotoxin / by Allan MacFadyen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    j5 —Filtered Cell Juices of the Pneumococcus after Passages through the Rabbit. Rabbit —1.0 c.cm. intravenous. Dead. „ 0.5 „ „ Very ill. Guinea-pig.—1-0 c.cm. intraperitoneal. Dead. ,, 0.5 „ ,, >) 0.5 ,, )i ii ,, 0.1 ,, n i> c.—Filtered Cell Juices of the Pneumococcus after Further Passages through the Rabbit. Guineorpig.—1.0 c.cm. intraperitoneal. Dead. ,) 0.5 ,, )) i> „ 0-1 >> I' ” ,) 0.05 ,, )i 11 The toxic effects were of an acute character, the animals dying in twelve to eighteen hours. The main post-mortem appearance consisted in a more or less acute congestion of the lungs. The filtered cell juices contained about 5 mg. of solid matter in each cubic centimetre. The above experiments will be sufficient to prove that it is possible to extract an acutely lethal toxin from the bodies of virulent pneumococci, and one of much greater potency than the soluble toxins described by previous observers, inasmuch as the ascertained minimum lethal dose was about i mg. _ The endotoxin of the pneumococcus is sensitive to the action of heat. A filtered cell juice heated to 55 C. for an hour failed to kill in doses of 0.5 and 1 c.cm., whilst 2 c.cm. only caused death at the end of five days. The unheated juice was acutely lethal in doses of c.cm. The prolonged action of chloroform vapour is also injm-ious to the toxin. After an exposure of one hour to chloroform vapour, 0.5, 1, and 2 c.cm. did not kill the test animals, the lethal dose of the untreated toxic cell ]Uice '^^Tlm^immunizing experiments with the above toxin of the pneumococcus are at present in progress, and will form the subject of another communication upon the feasibility of producing an antitoxic serum. REFERENCES. iG. and F. Klemperer, BeH.klin. ^Voch., and Scarbone, Cenlralbl.J. Bakler., vol. x,. P- p. 259? iCaruot and Fournier, 1900, p. 357. bourn, British Medical Journal, 1897, i, p. 510, and 1899, » Roiuer, Archiv /. Ophthalmolopie, vol. 55, 1902. Medical Journal, April 21st, 1906. 10 Macfadyen, British