VENOMS, TOXINS, ANTIBODIES 369 



after Heuer's figures. It is possible that Heuer's use of diluted sera 

 (1 or 0.1 per cent) may have been responsible for his irregular results, just 

 as Lundberg (110) states to be the case with alexin (see page 360). 



Baroni and Jonesco-Mihaiesti (13) exposed horse anticholera serum to 

 ultra-violet light and found that it lost its agglutinin property in 18 to 

 20 min., which was about double the exposure required to inactivate the 

 bacteriolysin of the same serum. In their second paper (14) the same 

 authors make a detailed comparison of the agglutinin of an antityphoid 

 serum with its power to produce anaphylactic shock. The latter was 

 more resistant to ultra-violet light. 



Hassko (76) gives various details as to the relation of original titer 

 and dilution to the rate of inactivation by ultra-violet light, and by 

 absorption on dead bacteria, separates a residual "0" agglutinin from an 

 absorbed " H " agglutinin which is the more resistant to irradiation. The 

 agglutinins used were active against Bacillus enteritidis Gartner, B. 

 typhosus, and B. dysenteriae Shiga, and had titers varying from 1600 to 

 50,000. 



X-radiation was found not to affect agglutinins against either B. 

 typhosus or B. pullorum. Fiorini and Zironi (59) exposed the former to 

 doses up to 10 X, and Lusztig (HI) exposed the latter to as much as 

 5H.E.D. 



Skrop (149) records a decrease in typhoid agglutinin titer produced 

 by beta radiation, and an increase produced by alpha radiation (149a). 

 He attributes these effects to decrease or increase in positive charge on 

 agglutinin particles (micelles?) due to the absorption of negatively or 

 positively charged beta or alpha particles respectively. The evidence 

 and the conclusions are most suggestive. 



Phagocytosis and Opsonins. — It is sometimes difficult to distinguish 

 here between effects on leucocytes and effects on opsonins, which are 

 defined as antibodies facihtating the phagocytosis of a particular type of 

 cell. Thus Reiter's paper (137) records that radium radiation of blood 

 increased its phagocytic power; the effect may have resulted from changes 

 in either leucocytes or serum. The work of Chambers and Russ (34) 

 makes it appear probable that the increase was due to effects on leuco- 

 cytes, since all that Chambers and Russ could find upon a-radiation of 

 serum alone was a progressive loss of opsonin. Their technique has been 

 described above (see page 358) and the effect was here again due solely 

 to a-radiation, the /3- and 7-rays being without effect. The course of 

 opsonin inactivation was approximately that of a unimolecular reaction, 

 or, as the authors say, "of a general exponential type." But the titer 

 was taken as the ratio between the number of bacteria ingested per leuco- 

 cyte in the irradiated citrated plasma and the corresponding number in 

 the controls. This method is with justice considered by the authors 

 theoretically vulnerable, and they accordingly caution against accepting 



