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saponins is very different from that of serum, the former being compar- 
able rather to that of the alkaloids where only a loose and transitory 
union is effected between the cell and the chemical agent. 
The hemolytic action of saponin was studied by Ransom (8). He 
found slight quantitative differences in the action of saponin on blood 
from different species. Lysis oceurs more rapidly with concentrated 
saponin and blood than it does when either is diluted. Saponin becomes 
bound both to the corpuscles and to the serum, 0.75 cubic centimeter of 
either fixing 2 milligrams of saponin, so that it does not subsequently 
act on red corpuscles. He found that this action depended upon cho- 
lesterin, and obtained the same result with pure cholesterin dissolved in 
lecithin, lecithin alone being inert. One cubic centimeter of a 1 per cent 
solution of cholesterin in ether was added to 20 cubic centimeters of a 
0.1 per cent solution of saponin in 0.85 per cent salt solution, shaken 
and kept at 36° for a few hours. At the end at this time the saponin- 
cholesterin mixture exerted no action on dog’s blood and had no local 
irritating action when placed under the skin of frogs. 
From his examination of corpuscles undergoing hemolysis, Ransom 
thinks that saponin acts first upon the surface of the corpuscles, later 
upon the interior. Kobert, however, classes saponin as one of those 
substances which most readily penetrates the corpuscles. 
Ransom’s work was confirmed by Schanzenbach (10), who also found 
that injections of saponin lower the resistance of animals to the action 
of bacteria. 
Attention has been turned to the hemolytic action of saponin and to 
the similarity of the interaction of saponin and cholesterin to that of 
toxin and antitoxin. 
Both Bashford (1) and Besredka (2) failed in their attempts to 
produce an immunity in animals inoculated with saponin, thus contra- 
dicting the claims of Pohl, and Sachs (9) explains the action of 
cholesterin by assuming that it acts only as a solvent for the saponin. 
However, it would be difficult to understand why saponin previously dis- 
solved in cholesterin should be any. less injurious to corpuscles than the 
saponin alone. Madsen and Noguchi (6) studied the cholesterin-saponin 
combination by the methods of physical chemistry and were able to plot 
a curve for the interaction of these bodies similar to the curves obtained 
for various toxin-antitoxin mixtures." 
1 Since this article has been in press a work by Bunting (J. Hap. Med. (1906), 
8, 625-646) has been received. Bunting studied experimental ansemias in rabbits. 
To produce anemia he used saponin “which is intensely hemolytic to rabbit blood 
in the test tube, and to which, apparently, a tolerance is not so easily established” 
(as to ricin). The fatal dose was 1.5 to 2 milligrams per kilo of animal. 
Injections of sublethal doses were followed by slight changes in the leucocytes, 
