PHARMACODYNAMIC ACTIONS OF BACTERIAL POISONS

Abstract

Probably no expression is more frequently used by clinician and pathologic physiologists to describe certain phenomena during acute and chronic diseases due to bacterial infection than term toxemia or the toxic action of micro-organism. Such expressions denote our general tacit agreement that processes by which pathogenic microorganisms cause disease consist in last instance in chemical action of such poisons on certain organs or organ systems. Yet our real knowledge regarding such action is disproportional to frequency of usage of word toxemia, and this statement holds true nearly as much for few specific secretory products of bacteria, true toxins in immunologic sense of word, as for unspecific poisons that are formed by interaction of micro-organisms and tissue cells. During last ten years our group of workers in Otho S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute