[INTRODUCTION.]
Our knowledge of the toxins is of quite recent date. It is hardly twenty years since we began to acquire a knowledge of the facts that are detailed in this volume, and to which modern medicine owes its most recent and marvelous progress, particularly in serotherapy.
In this volume we have studied, besides the true toxins—substances of cellular origin and of albuminoid nature and unknown composition—other toxic substances, the nitrogenized alkaloidal bases introduced into science through the researches of Selmi, Armand Gautier, and von Behring, and which are highly hydrogenized nitrogenous crystallizable principles of definite chemical composition—the products of the more or less advanced breaking down of albuminoids.
Although these principles differ widely, by reason of their physiological properties as a whole, from the toxic albuminoids, or true toxins, it appears proper to consider them as products of the advanced decomposition of these toxins—and in this respect their study becomes imperative, the more so as they are very frequently encountered together with the toxins, particularly in serpent-venoms, where their action is exerted in addition to that of the true toxins.
In the first volume of this collection we dwelt on the essentially reducing nature of the cellular functionation. To this functionation—causing the splitting up or decomposition by hydrolysis of nitrogenized albuminoid foods—is due the formation of these toxic basic products within the organism, whether normally, or because of certain pathological conditions.
This alone suffices to show that, during physiological life, oxygen plays an essentially antitoxic rôle within the organism.
It is hoped that this succinct résumé, which it has been sought to make as clear as possible, will be of service to those who, while not scientists actively engaged in scientific progress, desire to be abreast of the knowledge of modern evolution, but yet are not in a position to consult original papers or large treatises.