noun
definition
An antibody that is capable of neutralising specific toxins that are causative agents of disease.
Examples of antitoxins in a Sentence
The antitoxins are examples of this variety.
In preparing anti-bacterial sera the lines of procedure correspond to those followed in the case of antitoxins, but the bacteria themselves in the living or dead condition or their maceration products are always used in the injections.
Antitoxins are organic products designed to neutralize the formation of the toxins of certain diseases in the blood.
Of such probably are the toxins and antitoxins of certain infections, which, anchoring themselves not by any means indiscriminately, but to particular and concerted molecules, by such anchorage antagonize them or turn them to favourable or unfavourable issues.
The effect of the abnormal conditions is probably to stop the production of, or weaken or destroy the protective enzymes or antitoxins, the presence of which normally confers immunity on the leaf.
The latter view, first advocated by Ehrlich, harmonizes with the facts established with regard to toxic action and the behaviour of antitoxins, and may now be regarded as established.
Substances obtained from animals include gland secretions, pepsin and other ferments, musk, cod-liver oil, &c., and to these may be added various antitoxins.
Where tetanus has become established, antibodies are used to work against the poison (known as tetanus antitoxins ).
The development of all antagonistic substances which confer the special character on antimicrobic sera, as well as antitoxins, may be expressed as the formation of bodies with specific combining affinity for the organic substance introduced into the system - toxin, bacterium, red corpuscle, &c., as the case may be.
Toxins are also injected in order to stimulate the blood plasma to form antitoxins (see Bacteriology).
In 1904 he delivered at the university of California a course of lectures, the object of which was to illustrate the application of the methods of physical chemistry to the study of the theory of toxins and antitoxins, and which were published in 1907 under the title Immunochemistry.
In the mutual behaviour of such cells, toxins, and antitoxins, and again of microbes themselves, we may demonstrate even on the field of the microscope some of the modes of such actions, which seem to partake in great measure at any rate of a chemical quality (agglutinins, coagulins, chemotaxis).
If the membrane is of some impermeable substance, like gold leaf, the hyphae cannot dissolve its way through, but the tip finds the most minute pore and traverses the barrier by means of it, as it does a stoma on a leaf, We may hence conclude that a parasitic hyphae pierces some plants or their stomata and refuses to enter others, because in the former case there are chemotropically attractive substances present which are absent from the latter, or are there replaced by repellent poisonous or protective substances such as enzymes or antitoxins.
The toxins produced by microbes, if too weak to destroy the leucocytes, induce them to secrete antitoxins, which not only act as antidotes to the toxins and are injurious to the microbes, but also increase the phagocytic power of the leucocytes (opsonius of Wright).
The theory also supplies the explanation of the power which an animal possesses of producing various antitoxins, since this depends ultimately upon susceptibility to toxic action.
Antitoxins can be prepared by immunizing a large animal, such as a horse, by injecting gradually increasing doses of specific toxins into its subcutaneous tissue.