The nature of the toxic principle of the scarlet fever streptococcus for rabbits.

In the present communication we wish to report the results obtained in an effort to produce toxic effects in animals with the streptococcus scarlatinae and to briefly discuss the toxemia and exanthem of the disease in the light of these experiments. The work was undertaken because of our previous failure to induce acute toxic nephritis in the rabbit either with large doses of viable culture or massive quantities of culture filtrate. In fact we were unable in the earlier experiments to infect the rabbit even with large amounts of scarlet fever streptococci. The fact that in human scarlet fever there is so frequently a nephritic complication, presumably toxic in origin, led us to attempt to induce experimentally the kidney lesion. We assumed at the time the specific streptococcus in vitro would yield a soluble toxin.

Three separate isolations of the scarlet fever streptococcus were employed in our present study upon the nature of the toxic principle. Two cultures, one designated “Harrison”, the other “Tyler”, were supplied us by Dr. Dick of Chicago, while the third culture was one of our own which had been recovered here from the blood of a case of scarlet fever.