Serums, vaccines and toxines in treatment and diagnosis / by Wm. Cecil Bosanquet ... and John W.H. Eyre.

  • Bosanquet, W. Cecil (William Cecil), 1866-1941.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Serums, vaccines and toxines in treatment and diagnosis / by Wm. Cecil Bosanquet ... and John W.H. Eyre. 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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    hypothetical substances Buchner gave the name alexines.'' It is by means of such alexines, as will shortly be shown, that destruction of bacteria is in many cases brought about; and it is by other chemical substances circulating in the blood that the poisonous products of the organisms are neutralised. As a result of these discoveries attention was directed for a time mainly to the chemical contents of the serum and other fluids, and the importance of the process of phago- cytosis was seriously called in question. A whole series of peculiar properties possessed by the serum of immunised animals was brought to light, and was used to support the humoral theory '' of immunity. Here, however, as in many other instances in which opposing theories have been hotly upheld and attacked, time has shown that each side in the controversy had grasped a portion of the truth, and declined in the heat of conflict to recognise the other portion which was defended by their antagonists. The upholders of the phagocytic hypothesis satisfactorily proved that in many important affections the serum alone was ineffective in destroying bacteria and that the action of leucocytes was essential for the process of defence, and maintained further that the very chemical bodies which were held by their opponents to constitute the basis of immunity, were them- selves secreted by the leucocytes of the blood. The dis- covery of a special group of substances (opsonins, p. 34) existing in the serum, by which the process of phagocytosis is induced or at least facilitated, has to some extent recon- ciled the positions of the opposing schools. But, so far as is at present known, it would appear that both phagocytosis and bacteriolysis (p. 6) take part in the destruction of bacteria within the body, now one, now the other pre- dominating, according to the nature of the infective agent. Antitoxines.—In the year 1890 Behring and Kitasato published the result of their important researches on the poison of tetanus and on the possibility of rendering animals immune to it. These observers proved that it was possible