Immunochemistry: The Application of the Principles of Physical Chemistry to the Study of the Biological Antibodies (Classic Reprint)

The following pages contain a summary of six lectures on the Immunity Reactions delivered at the University of California, in Berkeley, California, during the summer session of 1904. The object of the lectures was to illustrate the application of the methods of physical chemistry to the study of the theory of toxins and antitoxins. The idea that the reciprocal action of toxin and antitoxin is of the same nature as a chemical reaction is nearly as old as the study of these phenomena, which was inaugurated by the discovery of the diphtheria antitoxin by Behring and Kitasato in 1890. The German school, led by Ehrlich, the renowned Director of the Prussian Serum Institute in Frankfort-on-the-M ain, has in particular done much work in support of the opinion that the interaction of toxin and antitoxin is of the nature of a chemical reaction; whereas the French school, led by Metschnikoff, tried to show that the effect of an antitoxin is chiefly of physiological order, an antitoxin was supposed to stimulate in some way the organic tissues in their struggle against the attack of the poison. When Ehrlich succeeded in showing that the agglutinating action of ricin upon red corpuscles (erythrocytes) suspended in a physiological salt-solution (0.9% Na Cl) is inhibited by the antibody, the antiricin, the notion that a physiological effect is executed by the antibody was 1T he first studies in this direction were carried out by Buchner (1893) and Roux and Vaillard (1894). Cf. Chapter
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