Phylaxis / by G. Billard ; translated by G. Gainsborough.

  • Billard, Gabriel, 1873-1929.
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Phylaxis / by G. Billard ; translated by G. Gainsborough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/100 (page 14)
    H analogous results. So it follows that a guinea-pig, of the type used, after preliminary treatment with uroformine, survives a lethal dose of sparteine, and my working hypothesis seems to be well supported by this observation. Now hexamine (hexamethylene-tetramine), discovered by Bardet and Trillat, is decomposed in the animal organism with liberation of formaldehyde (formalin). Consequently, if the impregnation of the nervous system with formol can protect an animal against neurotoxins, would it not be possible to protect a guinea-pig in the same way against sparteine by using anatoxin (complex formolised toxin) ? I injected four more guinea-pigs as follows : A. —-With sparteine, io mg. per ioo g. body weight and tetanus anatoxin, I c.c. per 300 g. of body weight (mixed in vitro). The animal survived without symptoms. B. —Tetanus anatoxin first, followed 15 minutes later by sparteine. Death followed in 43 minutes. C. —Sparteine first, and 15 minutes later the anatoxin. Death followed in 26 minutes. D. —Controls with sparteine. Death occurred in 46 minutes. In this experiment it cannot be doubted that guinea- pig A has been protected by the formalin, because the tetanus toxin moiety of the complex had not had time to act. Why, in the second series, did we not get identical results with the first experiment, and why is it that