Absorption of cholera toxin into blood from a separated jejunal segment.

Abstract

ONE of the chief problems in cholera research is whether the toxic agents primarily responsible for the diarrhoea are confined to the intestinal tract, or are absorbed into the blood. Finkelstein1 has suggested that there is only one important toxin, choleragen, which produces diarrhoea in infant rabbits, and that this does not leave the intestine, because he has found that choleragen injected intravenously does not cause cholera. The question is of practical importance because, if important toxins do not reach the blood, circulating antibodies will have no effect on them, and it has been suggested that prophylaxis should concentrate on an attempt to build up local antibodies in the intestine (sometimes called copro-antibodies), for example, by means of an oral vaccine.