The nature of the antagonism between toxins and antitoxins

Abstract

Abstract In the ‘Deutsche Med. Wochenschrift’ for 1894 appeared a controversy on this subject between Behring and Buchner. Behring maintained that the antagonism was of a chemical nature, and that the antitoxin neutralised the toxin much as an alkali neutralised an acid. Buchner, on the other hand, adduced results opposed to this view, pointing to the interpretation that the action was an indirect one, due to the antitoxin operating in some indirect way through the medium of the cells of the organism.