Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/42

36 with more or less success in reference to other diseases like plague and typhoid fever. The study of immunity has also rendered possible what may be called curative inoculation, or the injection of antitoxic material as a cure for diphtheria, tetanus, snake poisoning, etc.

The power the blood possesses of slaying bacteria was first discovered when the effort was made to grow various kinds of bacteria in it; it was looked upon as probable that blood would prove a suitable soil or medium for this purpose. It was found in some instances to have exactly the opposite effect. The chemical characters of the substances which kill the bacteria are not fully known; indeed, the same is true for most of the substances we have to speak of in this connection. Absence of knowledge on this particular point has not, however, prevented important discoveries from being made.

So far as is known at present, the substances in question are proteid in nature. The bactericidal powers of blood are destroyed by heating it for an hour to 56° C. Whether the substances are enzymes is a disputed point. So also is the question whether they are derived from the leucocytes; the balance of evidence appears to me to be in favor of this view in many cases at any rate, and phagocytosis becomes more intelligible if this view is accepted. The substances, whatever be their source or their chemical nature, are sometimes called alexins, but the more usual name now applied to them is that of bacterio-lysins.

Closely allied to the bactericidal power of blood, or blood-serum, is its globulicidal power. By this one means that the blood-serum of one animal has the power of dissolving the red blood-corpuscles of another species. If the serum of one animal is injected into the blood-stream of an animal of another species, the result is a destruction of its red corpuscles, which may be so excessive as to lead to the passing of the liberated hæmoglobin into the urine (hæmoglobinuria). The substance or substances in the serum that possess this property are called hæmolysins, and though there is some doubt whether bacteriolysins and hæmo-lysins are absolutely identical, there is no doubt that they are closely related substances.

Another interesting chemical point in this connection is the fact that the bactericidal power of the blood is closely related to its alkalinity. Increase of alkalinity means increase of bactericidal power. Venous blood contains more diffusible alkali than arterial blood and is more bactericidal; dropsical effusions are more alkaline than normal lymph and kill bacteria more easily. In a condition like diabetes, when the blood is less alkaline than it should be, the susceptibility to infectious diseases is increased. Alkalinity is probably beneficial because it favors those oxidative processes in the cells of the body which are so essential for the maintenance of healthy life.