THE H^MOLYTIC PROPERTIES OF ORGAN EXTRACTS. 271 



TABLE I. 



EMULSION OF MOUSE INTESTINE (10%). 



These experiments show that the susceptibility of the body's own 

 blood may be very great, even as great as that of a foreign species 

 of blood. Whether all these extracts dissolve the blood of the own 

 individual we have not determined; we regard it as probable, however, 

 since positive results were obtained in all experiments which we made 

 in this direction, especially with extracts of mouse intestine and of 

 guinea-pig stomach. 



These experiments (especially those with the extract of guinea- 

 pig spleen, which Shibayama too found to be active only for dog 

 blood) show that we are not here dealing with hcemolytic poisons of a 

 general kind (such as saponin, the gallic acid salts, and certain alka- 

 loids, like solanin, which dissolve all blood-cells regardless of species), 

 but that these hcemolytic poisons possess a certain specificity which 

 is of special biologic interest. 



The property of organ extracts to dissolve the blood-cells from the 

 same individual is of great significance because neither when normal 

 nor after immunizing procedures does the blood-serum of these animals 

 ever contain substances which damage the blood-cells of the animal 

 itself (autohsemolysins) . Tarassevitsch himself noticed the great dif- 

 ference existing, on the one hand, between the absence of a marked 

 hffimolytic action of guinea-pig serum on foreign species of blood 

 and the strong haemolytic action of the extracts of certain guinea-pig 



