Meningococcus Toxin and Antitoxin IV. Further Tests on Guinea Pigs and Rabbits

Summary Live cultures, whole killed cultures, washed killed cultures, washings of live cultures, washings of killed cultures and toxin (meningococcus bouillon filtrate) have more or less of a similar effect when injected intracisternally in 250-gram guinea pigs. Experimental meningococcus antitoxin has a neutralizing effect against meningococcus toxin, the washings of killed cultures and to some degree against washed cultures, when mixed with these substances before injection, but shows no evidence of neutralizing live cultures or killed cultures when the mixtures are injected intracisternally. Antimeningococcic serum has evidenced some neutralizing effect against meningococcus toxin when the mixture of toxin and serum was injected intracisternally. Exposure for two hours at incubator temperature has no appreciable deleterious effect on the toxin or mixtures of toxin and antitoxin.