Special Substances Research Articles

Systemic Influences in Immunity and Cancer

Systemic Influences in Immunity and Cancer

Treatment of gonorrhoids with lysovakina. Gershkovich and Shapiro (Ven. and Derm., 1928, No. 1)

Gershkovich and Shapiro recommend the treatment of gonorrhoids with lysovakina. It is known that Emmerich and Lw showed by their studies that a special substance, pyocyanase, capable not only of stopping the growth of this bacillus but also of causing lysis of other microbes, is formed in a 3-4-week-old broth culture of Pseudomonas bacillus. These studies initiated attempts to use pyocyanase for therapeutic purposes in a number of infectious diseases, including gonorrhea. The authors set out to test the therapeutic value of the lysovaccine in the treatment of gonorrheal diseases.

THE PINEAL REGION OF THE MAMMALIAN BRAIN: ITS MORPHOLOGY AND HISTOLOGY IN RELATION TO FUNCTION

THE PINEAL REGION OF THE MAMMALIAN BRAIN: ITS MORPHOLOGY AND HISTOLOGY IN RELATION TO FUNCTION

ON THE NATURE OF THE TUBERCULIN-HYPERSENSITIVENESS

The tuberculin-hypersensitiveness is now a generally known fact in the medical world, and it is applied, especially in the veterinary service, for the early detection of the tuberculosis, the true nature of it being obscure yet. Of course, many of scholars earnestly studied to explain the nature, and some of them said that the tuberculin reaction is caused as the reaction between the antigen and the antibody, while some others consider it as a mere increased sensitiveness or as a step toward the immunity against tubercle bacilli. I, also, attempted to explain the nature of this phenomenon expreimentally, employing the rabbit as experimental animals, and I selected the ophthalmic reaction as the best method. Followings are the results I reached from the experimental data. I) Not only living tubercle bacilli, but also, dead (heated) bacilli, as Kraus & Volk, and others said, have the ability to hypersensitize actively the animals against tuberculin. We are not able completely to devoid off the special antigenic property by heating the bacilli at the boiling point.II) The blood or the serum from the tuberculous and at the same time tuberculin-hypersensitive rabbits makes passively the same kind of animal tuberculin-hypersensitive, this special quality of the blood or the serum being destroyed at 100°C., and this quality can be taken off by absorption of the blood or serum with living or dead (heated) tubercle bacilli completely, therefore the special substance in the tuberculous blood is not tuberculin, but, on the contrary, antibody in its nature.III) Passive tuberculin-hypersensitiveness is established 24 to 48 hours after the serum-injection, and disappears in 2 or 3 days.

To the physiology of the spleen

The spleen secretes a special substance, leukocytolysin, an enzyme-like substance that breaks down when heated for 1/2 to an hour at 56 This leukocytolytic function of the spleen is influenced by various influences, particularly hormonal.

A Study of the Athreptic Theory of the Growth of Cancer

In 1904 Bashford and Murray (1) showed that tumor transplantation could be successfully performed in mice in which Jensen mouse carcinoma had already developed fourteen days to ten weeks after the first effective transplantation. Two years later Ehrlich (2) reported that the presence of actively growing transplanted mouse carcinoma or sarcoma prevented the growth of secondary implants in a majority of cases. He explained this by assuming that special nutritive substances are required for the growth of neoplastic cells and that these cells take up such food stuffs more rapidly than do normal somatic cells. The limited amount of growth-promoting substances is all taken up by the first implant, thus preventing the development of the secondary implant. From this observation Ehrlich declared his athreptic theory of the growth of cancer. Later Bashford, Murray and Haaland (3) suggested that the degree of resistance of the host to the secondary implantation depends upon the degree of resorption of the first tumor tissue implants. Thus the percentage of the positive reinoculations in animals which received a larger initial dose is much less than those which received a smaller initial dose, because in the latter case less tumor material was reabsorbed than in the former. Where the initial dose for each animal was the same, animals with the more slowly growing tumors have a higher grade of resistance than animals with actively growing tumors, presumably because the animals carrying smaller tumors had re-absorbed a larger amount of tumor tissue than had those with larger tumors.

The nature of the substances adsorbed on the surface of the fat globules in cow's milk. (Preliminary Report).

It is possible to account for the emulsion character of the fat in milk and cream both on theoretical grounds, because of the abundant presence of hydrophilic colloids in milk plasma, and on experimental grounds, because milk plasma (skim milk) readily stabilizes emulsions of oils and fats foreign to milk. However, a number of investigators, beginning with Danilewski and Raden-hausen,1 have attempted to isolate the emulsifying substance from milk. Storch2 concluded, as the result of extensive experiments, that a special substance, a mucin-like protein, is involved. Voltz and Abderhalden3 and Voltz4 decided against the existence of a special substance because of the wide variety of products of varying proportions isolated by them. More recently Bredenberg,5 who, like Voltz, gives a very complete review of the literature, concluded that a mixture of protein, mucous and fatty substances, including calcium soaps, constitutes the so-called membrane around the fat globules.By using for the most part physical me...

Special Growth-Promoting Substances and Correlation

Special Growth-Promoting Substances and Correlation

The chemical basis of morphological polarity in regeneration

When a piece is cut out of the stem of a plant (Bryophyllum calycinum) the most apical buds will grow out into shoots, while roots develop chiefly but not exclusively at the basal end. The writer suggests the following explanation of this phenomenon of polarity. In the normal stem the growing region at the apex as well as the leaves send out special inhibitory substances toward the base of the plant which prevent the growth of the more basally situated dormant buds capable of giving rise to shoots. When a piece is cut out from the stem these inhibitory substances continue to flow in the piece toward the base and the most apical node will be the first one sufficiently free from these inhibitory substances and hence the two dormant buds situated at this node will grow out first. As soon as they grow out they produce and also send out inhibitory substances toward the base, thereby preventing the more basally situated buds from growing out into shoots.

The stimulation of nerve-endings in muscle and the theory of receptive substances

Langley has shown that the stimulating action of nicotine upon muscle is prevented by curare and that this antagonism is exhibited also in muscles in which the nerve fibers have been removed by degeneration. This and other facts have led him to formulate the hypothesis of special receptive substances present in the muscle upon which these drugs and other chemical stimuli exert their action, and furthermore he ventures the generalization, in contradiction of the usual belief, that “in no case do chemical substances have a special action on nerve-endings.”The series of experiments here reported were made at the suggestion of Dr. J. W. Warren to test the above hypothesis. The gastrocnemius muscle of the frog was used and its reactions were studied after immersion in solutions of sodium sulphocyanide and potassium sulphocyanide. The following results were obtained.1. Action of potassium sulphocyanide.—This salt was used in hypertonic solutions (2 per cent. KCNS made up in a Ringer's mixture) and in isotonic s...

On the velocity of the cathode particles emitted by various metals under the influence of Röntgen rays, and its bearing on the theory of atomic disintegration

The numerous theoretical and experimental investigations during the past few years of J. J. Thomson, Rutherford, Becquerel, and others on the radio-active substances have demonstrated conclusively that the only theory which can satisfactorily account for the phenomena observed is that of atomic disintegration, a process which is apparently going on in several, if not in all, of the elements. This process, however, seems to be entirely spontaneous, to depend only on the special substance under investigation, and to be outside the control of any external influence brought to bear upon it. Immense labour has been expended on experiments involving the utmost variation in the temperature and in the chemical and physical conditions of the elements, but all to no purpose so far as influencing the rate of atomic disintegration is concerned. As far as is known at present, no variation in the output of energy has been detected. There are, it is true, results by Curie and Danne, and more recently by Makower, which seem to show an effect of temperature on radium emanation. These results are not, however, confirmed by Bronson in his experiments on the same subject, so that no definite conclusion can yet be reached on this point. Obviously, it would be of immense interest and importance, not only from the scientific point of view, but also from the technical and commercial standpoint, if some method could be devised of stimulating or retarding at will this output of atomic energy. That there is a great store of energy in the atom seems now beyond question, and if this reservoir could only become available, all our present conditions might be completely revolutionised. Naturally, the only mode of attacking this problem is by investigating what the nature of this atomic emission of energy is.

Croonian Lecture, 1906.—On nerve endings and on special excitable substances in cells

Amongst the fundamental problems of physiology is the determination of the actual seat of the changes which accompany or are the cause of physiological activity. The earliest step was the attribution of the more obvious functions of the body to the several organs which compose it. This has been followed by more or less successful attempts to ascertain the separate function of each tissue of an organ, and of each constituent of a tissue. And in recent years investigation has been largely concerned with the endeavour to localise functions long known, and those which from time to time are discovered, in the several parts, and in the several chemical constitutents of the ultimate unit, the cell. I propose to-day to consider what is the actual seat of certain physiological activities in cells, and chiefly in those of muscular and nervous tissues. About 50 years ago Claude Bernard investigated the action of various poisons on the properties of the nervous and muscular systems. The most important observations were those on the action of curari. It had long been known that a muscle contracted when it was stimulated, but it was a question of interminable arguments whether it responded to the stimulus in virtue of its own intrinsic properties, or in consequence of the presence of nerve-fibres in its substance.

Societies and Academies

LONDON. Royal Society, May 24 —Croonian Lecture, 1906.—“On Nerve Endings and on Special Excitable Substances in Cells.” By Prof. J. N. Langley, F.R.S.

PHAGOCYTOSIS AND OPSONINS.

<h3>INTRODUCTION.</h3> Phagocytosis in its relations to healing and immunity has been discussed most actively from various points of view, and it is to some of the results of the most recent investigations in this field that I not without hesitation ask your attention. The demonstration by Wright and Douglas¹of the presence in blood and other fluids of certain substances called by them opsonins,²which render various bacteria susceptible to the phagocytic action of leucocytes, has given a fresh interest to the study of phagocytosis. At present we may accept as an established fact that phagocytosis of many bacterial and other cells by the leucocytes, in the first instance, is dependent on special substances, normal and immune, which become attached to the cells in question and in some manner so change them that they are taken up readily by polynuclear leucocytes<i>in vitro</i>. Leucocytes freed from serum do

On the conditions for the formation of specific Kraus's sediments

In 1897, Kraus received a special reaction: adding to the filtrate cultures of typhoid, cholera and plague the serum of animals immunized with the appropriate cultures, he received special flocculent sediments, the nature of which has not yet been clarified. Kraus believed that this reaction occurs from the presence in specific sera of special substances that cause the phenomenon of agglutination, and therefore, both the formation of precipitates and the agglutination were considered to be one and the same phenomenon.