M. C. CHANG 125 



din, was advocated as an oral antifertility agent (Martin and 

 Beiler, 1952; Sieve, 1952), but when phosphorylated hesperidin 

 was fed to rats or deposited in the Fallopian tubes of rabbits at 

 the time of fertilization, no antifertilization effects were observed 

 ( Chang and Pincus, 1953 ) . Prevention of fertilization by another 

 hyaluronidase inhibitor, trigestistic acid, was examined by Parkes 

 ( 1953 ) , who concluded that although this compound has no 

 effect orally, when added to the sperm-suspension for insemina- 

 tion, "the spermatozoon is incapacitated by it in some way, or 

 other than, or additional to the neutralization of hyaluronidase." 

 According to Parkes (1955), after the treatment of sperm with 

 hyaluronidase inhibitor, there is evidence that spermatozoa are 

 lodged in the perivitelline space of an egg in which no sperma- 

 tozoon has penetrated the vitellus. If this is a fact and not an 

 accidental observation, the inhibition of sperm hyaluronidase 

 may result in the inability of sperm to penetrate vitellus. How- 

 ever, it is not known whether the vitelline membrane contains 

 hyaluronic acid. 



Agglutination of Spermatozoa and Fertilization 



"Egg water" is enriched with some substances derived from 

 sea urchin eggs and capable of inducing the activity and agglu- 

 tination of homologous spermatozoa. This sperm-agglutinating 

 agent was called "fertilizin" by Lillie (1923). Agglutination of 

 horse or rabbit sperm occurs at lower (3-6.3) or at higher (8.3) 

 pH, and also occurs in blood serum, in the secretions of the vagina 

 or uterus, or in body fluid (Kato, 1938). It occurs in tissue ex- 

 tracts (Chang, 1947a) and in saline containing Congo red or 

 Chicago blue (Chang, unpublished). According to Parkes et al. 

 ( 1954 ) sperm heads coated with a negatively charged substance 

 are agglutinated in the presence of positively charged substances. 

 It seems therefore that the agglutination of mammalian sperma- 

 tozoa is not a specific reaction but a very general one. It follows 

 then that any condition that induces agglutination may or may 

 not at the same time impair the fertilizing capacity of mammalian 

 spermatozoa. As for the sperm agglutination in relation to ferti- 

 lization reaction of marine species as elaborated by Tyler ( 1948 ) 



