That is why, in spite of the impossibility of proving their origin directly, it is quite probable that it is analogous to that of the fixators and that antitoxins are manufactured by cellular elements, the macrophages in particular.
Yet, Behring's discovery of antitoxins still hung over it like a sword of Damocles; it was imperative that the respective parts played by antitoxins and by phagocytes should be elucidated.
He concluded therefrom that the presence ofantitoxins depended on that of the phagocytes.
Metchnikoff began by asking himself whether the microbes themselves did not produce antitoxins in order to defend themselves against enemy micro-organisms.
He made many experiments but only obtained negative results, and concluded that the antitoxins must be manufactured by the organism itself.
However, certain observations on toxins and antitoxins pleaded in favour of this thesis.
Experiments on divers higher animals having proved that, in them also, antitoxins were localised in humors containing phagocytes, Metchnikoff concluded that the antitoxins were manufactured by the cells themselves.
After they are called into being by the excitation of some toxic products, like those of the typhoid bacillus for example, the antitoxins remain in the blood for years, ready to neutralise at once any influx of fresh infection.
In serum therapy antitoxins are artificially excited into being in the blood of beasts.
Some antitoxins are always present in cells, and where the normal quantity of these is used up in neutralising toxins, other antitoxic bodies are formed, until finally the excess of these is thrown off into the blood serum.
In general, theseantitoxins are precipitable with the globulins, and possess quite considerable powers of resistance towards physical and chemical agents.
Experiments so far made have shown that the antitoxinsare substances of an albuminoid nature, of unknown composition, and which are very closely united to the albuminoid substances of the serum.
The protective power of theseantitoxins is absolutely marvelous.
Ehrlich's theory of side chains, to which reference has already been made, furnishes us with an explanation of the formation of the antitoxins in tumors.
In the animal, the antitoxins are eliminated mostly by the fluids of the body, and particularly by the urine.
The search for antitoxins and their rôle in the etiology of infectious diseases are fundamental points in actual therapy.
This explains why it has been possible to produce antitoxins from toxins which have lost some of their toxic properties, but which have preserved their property of uniting with antitoxic substances.
Frequent attention has been paid to the mode of action of the antitoxins upon the toxins, a phenomenon of great importance in relation to the phenomenon of immunity acquired against the toxins.
Acquired immunity { Acquired naturally (involuntarily) produced by antitoxins formed { byan attack of the disease.
To be of value, antitoxins must be used as early as possible, before tissue change has occurred and before the toxins have, so to speak, got the upper hand.
If the toxins triumph, the result is death; if the antitoxins and resistance of the tissues triumph, the result is recovery.
The antitoxins are now ready for injection into the patient who has contracted diphtheria, and in whose blood toxins are in the ascendency and under which the individual may succumb.
The progress of disease is therefore a struggle between the toxins and the antitoxins: when the toxins are in the ascendency we get an increase of the disease; when the antitoxins are in the ascendency we get a diminution of disease.
Every few days we see in the daily papers reports of new serums and antitoxins which are claimed to cure or create immunity to certain diseases.
Therefore, we claim that there is no necessity for the employment of poisonous drugs, serums and antitoxins for this purpose.
The vaccines, serums and antitoxins of medical science are prepared from these bacterial excrements and from extracts made of the bodies of bacteria.
Vaccination as protection against smallpox, the use ofantitoxins (of which more later) against diphtheria, and inoculation against typhoid are all ways in which we may be protected against diseases.
When properly introduced into the tissues of animals they cause the body cells to form antitoxins (Chapter XXVII) which are capable of preventing the action of the toxin in question.
The method of preparing antitoxins is essentially the same in all cases, though differing in minor details.
Hence they are somewhat more complex than antitoxins or antienzymes which have a combining group only.
These free cell receptors, antitoxins or antienzymes, which are produced in the body by the proper introduction of toxins or enzymes, respectively, have the function of combining with these bodies but no other action.
Antitoxins have been prepared experimentally for a large number of both animal and vegetable poisons, including a number for bacterial toxins.
Our firstantitoxins were too weak and too variable.
All others are frauds and simply smother a symptom without relieving its cause, with the exception of quinine in malaria, mercury, and the various antitoxins in their appropriate diseases, which act directly upon the invading organism.
Unfortunately, our further experience with antitoxins and therapeutic sera of various kinds has not been satisfactory, and now the medical world is looking elsewhere for progress in therapeutics.
When the antitoxins and directly curative serums seemed about to make for themselves a place in therapeusis, it looked for a time as though this personal element might be entirely superseded.
Perhaps the military who wanted the antitoxins for germ warfare were waiting quietly for him either to talk or die.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "antitoxins" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
