A New Method of Testing Antitoxic Dysentery Serum

[摘要] 1. 1. In order to determine the antitoxic value of anti-dysentery serum it is necessary to select a standard serum which can be preserved in a dry state in the vacuum tubes of Ehrlich.2. 2. The standard antitoxin unit adopted by us was the amount that neutralized 100 minimal lethal doses of the toxin which at that time was at our disposal.3. 3. For the testing of other anti-dysentery sera the so-called L+ dose of dysentery toxin was adopted as the smallest amount which when mixed with the antitoxin unit and injected intravenously into a rabbit of 1500 to 2000 grams weight caused the death of the animal within from four to five days. The L+ dose of the toxin is employed, in the usual manner, to determine the relative antitoxic value of newly prepared antisera.4. 4. The deterioration of aged dysentery toxin is referable to a change of the toxin molecule into a non-toxic modification which possesses no avidity for the antitoxin. The toxin molecules lose their toxicity without the formation of toxoids; in this repect the dysentery toxin is unlike diphtheria toxin.

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）