REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 1 33 



Hideyo Noguchi, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. 

 Grant No. 94. For contimiation of the studies on s?iake venoms. 



$1,700. 



Abstract of Report. — Dr. Noguchi continued his studies on snake 

 venoms, upon which he has been engaged since 1900. Under the 

 present grant he has succeeded in preparing the antivenins for the 

 Crotalus adamanteus and water-moccasin venoms. The production 

 of the anti-moccasin veuin was thus for the first time attempted and 

 accomplished, while the anti-crotalus venin had already been pre- 

 pared by Flexner & Noguchi about a year ago. With the above- 

 named two antivenins several series of therapeutic experiments have 

 been performed. The results of these experiments show a very 

 high therapeutic value of the antivenins, as being able to save the 

 life of animals inoculated with certain multiple lethal doses of corre- 

 sponding venom, even when the symptoms were critically advanced. 

 It has been a common belief that an antivenin prepared with one 

 kind of venom can counteract the poisonous effects caused by the 

 other kinds of venom, irrespective of the source of the venom. This 

 unitary view of the nature of antivenin* has latel}^ been the point of 

 much discussion, and many experimental evidences have been brought 

 up against it. Dr. Noguchi, having had the opportunity of utilizing 

 several kinds of antivenins for this purpose, has tested each anti- 

 venin against different sorts of snake venom. The results obtained 

 by him prove conclusively that different antivenins act highly, if 

 not absolutely, specific, both in the animal body and in vitro, to 

 the venoms through which they are produced. From this fact he 

 concludes that in treating the snake bites only the specific antivenins 

 are to be employed. 



Since Flexner & Noguchi discovered the fact that the haemo- 

 lytic principles of snake venoms require certain secondary substances 

 in order to complete their " laking " action, attention was directed 

 to this phenomenon by some investigators, and Kyes has finally 

 succeeded in discovering the roles played by lecithin in the ven- 

 om-haemolysis. Dr. Noguchi made a routine examination over a 

 considerable number of acids and salts concerning the so-called venom- 

 activating properties of these chemically definite substances, and has 

 found that there a.re, besides lecithin and kephalin, still many sub- 

 stances which are able to produce hsemolj'sis upon the blood corpuscles 

 previously treated with snake venom, even when present in such 

 small amount as to remain entirely without haemolytic effect upon 



