Cellular toxins, or, The chemical factors in the causation of disease / by Victor C. Vaughan... and Frederick G. Novy.

  • Vaughan, Victor C. (Victor Clarence), 1851-1929.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cellular toxins, or, The chemical factors in the causation of disease / by Victor C. Vaughan... and Frederick G. Novy. 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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    bator. The /3-prototoxin is much more stable, but gradually de- composes and is converted into a toxoid when the culture is kept for several months. The /3-modification of the deuterotoxin is under certain conditions quite stable. These facts explain the observation, previously reported, that old cultures of diphtheria gradually de- crease in toxicity until a certain minimum degree is reached, after which there is no further decrease. 6. Avidity for combining with antitoxins does not suffer the least change on the conversion of a toxin into a toxoid ; for instance, the toxoid of prototoxin combines with antitoxin as readily as does the prototoxin itself. 7. Those varieties of poisons which combine less vigorously with antitoxins are neutralized by the same reagent less promptly; this explains the observation that certain poisons of the tetanus series (tetanolysin and tetanospasmin) are neutralized promptly by anti- toxin only in concentrated solution. 8. The facts observed in the experiments made upon animals with toxins and antitoxins are best explained on the supposition that the toxic molecule contains two independent groups of atoms, one of which may be designated as the haptophorous and the other as the toxophorous group. It is by the action of the haptophorous group that compounds are formed with antitoxins, while the poisonous action is due to the toxophorous group. The toxons also possess these two groups and in these bodies the haptophorous groups are identical with those of the toxins, while the toxophorous groups are much more feeble in their effects. 9. The effects of the haptophorous and the toxophorous groups can in certain cases be experimentally distinguished; for instance, Mor- genroth found that when frogs were kept in the cold and successively injected with toxin and antitoxin, these animals showed no evidences of the disease, although the tetanus poison could be detected in their nerves. On the other hand, when frogs were treated at like inter- vals with toxin and antitoxin and kept in an incubator, they suc- cumbed to tetanus even when all of the poison in the blood was com- bined with antitoxin and an excess of the latter was present. This indicates that the haptophorous group combined with the cells in the cold, while the toxophorous group manifested its effects only when the animal was kept in a warm place. The difference in time required for the action of these two groups possibly explains the in- cubation period which is observed in all cases of poisoning with bac- terial toxins ; for Donitz has shown that the tetanus poison com- bines almost instantaneously with the nerve cells. 10. The toxophorous group is more complicated in structure and therefore less stable than the haptophorous. The relative lability of the toxophorous group and the stability of the haptophorous group explain the quantitative conversion of toxins into toxoids. In a