The symptoms begin with dizziness and an indefinable sensation of being ill.
The second period is characterized chiefly by digestive and by nervous derangements. The digestive derangements are evidenced by very violent and painful vomiting, and diarrheas of choleraic or dysenteric character. The nervous derangements vary according to whether they are developed by an alkaloid, which causes delirium with hallucination, or by albuminoids, which cause depression, ataxo-adynamia, and stupor, these being particularly characteristic of the action of the toxic albuminoids.
As for the period of termination, it results either in death or a cure. If the poisoning is due to phallin, death appears to be an almost inevitable consequence, as it occurs in 80 per cent. or more of the cases. The poisoning by the alkaloids is less dangerous, and the cure, when it does occur, is very rapid, almost immediate, in fact, while in the case of the toxic albuminoids the cure is very slow, and attended by relapses.
One characteristic of these toxalbumins is that they are apt to develop specific antitoxalbumins. This fact has been verified not only in the case of abrin, ricin, robin, and their analogues, but also in that of the vegetable and animal diastases possessing toxic properties even in the slightest degree only. These antibodies generally exhibit their action in vitro. Thus antiricin exerts its antiagglutinative action on the erythrocytes in vitro in a saline medium in which the erythrocytes cannot live.
Here, again, as in the case of the antitoxins, it must be admitted that the antitoxalbumin possesses a specific affinity by virtue of which it unites chemically with the toxalbumin to give rise to a new substance which is devoid of toxicity.
The first antidiastase obtained by immunization methods, and according to the mechanism we have already seen, was antiemulsin, obtained by Hildebrandt.[62] This antiemulsin counteracts, both in vivo and in vitro, the specific action of emulsin. These studies have been followed by a large number of scientists, particularly by Camus and Gley,[63] Carnot, Mesnil,[64] and Charron and Levaditi,[65] in the case of trypsin; and Sachs[66] in the case of animal pepsin. Gessard[67] obtained a very active antityrosinase, and Mohl an antiurease.
The most important researches regarding this subject have been published by Morgenroth, Briot,[68] and Korschum[69] on antilab (or antirennet). The researches of these authors have fully demonstrated that there is considerable difference between the various rennets, which had heretofore been confounded under one head; thus there is no difference whatever between animal rennet and the rennet extracted by Rosetti[70] from Cynara cardunculus (cardoon) so far as their coagulant action on milk is concerned, yet each yields an antibody which is strictly specific to itself. From a scientific point of view we see, therefore, that the preparation of antidiastases permits us to differentiate certain diastases that could otherwise not be differentiated.
As we have shown at the beginning of this chapter, certain diastases, and particularly those that are concerned with the digestive processes, pepsin, trypsin, etc., and which are produced in abundance by the entire living organism, possess quite clearly defined toxic properties, and sometimes to even a considerable extent.[71]
Hemialbumose, from which peptones are formed, is itself a dangerous toxin. It is generally believed that the toxic action of the peptones and of the products of digestion of the albuminoids is due not to the peptone itself, but to the more advanced products of digestion, alkaloidal products unquestionably closely allied to the ptomaines.