Confining ourselves to a consideration of the theories, experiments and facts bearing on the nature and action of the toxic substances of pellagra, no matter what be their origin, we suggest the possibility of combating these toxins in vivo by antagonistic substances existing in the body as the result of a natural or acquired immunity.
As evidence of the existence of specific toxic and antitoxic bodies the following facts may be noted:
Tizzoni1 has produced typical pellagrous symptoms in animals by injection of pellagrous human blood.
Lombroso2 claims to have produced typical pellagrous manifestations by the administration of an alcoholic extract of impure maize by mouth.
Babes3 and other workers have found in the serum of pellagrins a substance antagonistic to extracts of damaged maize, that is a specific antibody.
Giovanni and Gatti,4 from their work on pellagrous serum, conclude that the serum of pellagrins has a hemolytic action