Nevertheless, the true peptones behave just like true poisons, when they are introduced hypodermically into the blood.[72]
Brieger has made us acquainted with a non-proteid substance, under the name of "peptotoxin," which is met with at the beginning of the putrefaction of albuminoids. This toxin, which is not a protein, is nothing else but a ptomaine. It is not altered by heat, and possesses a very high toxicity. Brieger claims that it is a hydroxylized derivative of an aromatic amide.[73]
Besides these facts, experiment has shown that the leucocytes, or white corpuscles, the defensive rôle of which we have noted in phagocytosis, owe their properties to the ferments which they secrete, and particularly to some of the digestive ferments. These white corpuscles are very rich in ferments of all kinds. Rossbach found in them amylase; Achalme found lipase, casease, and trypsin; and the study of immunity has brought to light a series of other ferments, the alexins or cytases (microcytase and macrocytase), which have an exceedingly important rôle to play.
It may easily be conceived that under certain circumstances a part or the whole of these ferments can pass into the blood of the fluids of the body, when they give rise to serious disturbances in certain cases, or confer immunity in others.
It is thus that, according to Gautier, the rise of temperature which characterizes fever is a consequence of the abnormal transudation of these normal ferments into the blood, and their transmission by the general circulation to the nervous centers.
However, it is not only in the leucocytes that we meet with these toxic digestive ferments; it appears quite probable, and has even been partially demonstrated, that they occur in a large number of other cellular elements.
It is not necessary here to dwell upon the formation of the antibodies of this group of active substances. The animal toxins are animal diastases, and we have seen in the preceding paragraph that these substances yield specific antibodies with great facility. For the rest, we will dwell more fully on these antibodies of the animal toxins in another volume of this collection, specially devoted to the study of these substances, and entitled "Les Serums Immunisants," to which we refer the reader who is desirous of obtaining more complete details than he can obtain in the present volume.
Alimentary Intoxications.—What we have already stated permits us to understand the phenomena of indigestion and botulism. The toxic substances form within the digestive tract when the nervous conditions modify the composition of the gastric juice, and arrest the flow of hydrochloric acid, the presence of which normally checks the development of the microbial flora, so rich within the stomach. The result is the production, within the organism, of all kinds of dangerous toxins. The same thing happens when the liver does not functionate normally, and this, affords us a knowledge of the mechanism by which foods that are most wholesome may become toxic by reason of poor digestion or poor assimilation.
The absorption of spoiled viands may, a fortiori, produce serious results. The alteration may be due not only to a bacterial infection, as in tainted meat, but it has also been proved that the flesh of an animal that has died of terror or madness may be very dangerous as a food, even after cooking, because, although there are toxins which are destroyed by a sufficient heat, there are ptomaines and certain toxins that resist destruction under these conditions.[74]
The use of preserved but spoiled beef, preserved ham or birds, sausages frequently, and pieces of pork tainted by sausage poison, gives rise to a succession of toxic symptoms the principal ones of which are dryness, constriction of the pharynx, bilious vomiting, diarrhea, dyspnea with pulmonary edema, etc. Fish and eggs are foods quite frequently capable of developing serious results; the same is the case with molluscs, mussels, oysters, lobsters, and snails. Lastly, moldy bread, spoiled cheese, putrid water, and spoiled vegetables themselves, are proper agents for determining attacks of botulic poisoning.