also taught me, that there zvas a great individual dißerence, 

 while I did not find that, in general, blood serum of tuberculous 

 persons possessed a stronger peptic power than that of non- 

 tuberculous persons. As albumen, in regard to which I deter- 

 mined the peptic power, I chose (as mentioned) horse-fibrine. 

 This was coloured at first with methylic blue, afterwards with 

 eosine. The fibrine freed from blood and blood-colour by means 

 of washing, was put in a watery solution of methylic-blue or 

 eosine for 24 hours. The fibrine absorbed much colour. The 

 superfluous colour was removed by boiling the fibrine with 

 constantly renewed water, until the water remained quite colour- 

 less. This is indeed a work taking up much time, but in this 

 way we can prepare coloured fibrine, which, when brought into 

 the controlling-tube, filled with water or Na.-Cl. solution, does 

 no longer let loose any colour. Afterwards I coloured the 

 fibrine with eosine instead of methylic blue, because I found that 

 the digestibility of this albumen suffered more by the colouring- 

 process when I used methylic-blue than when I used eosine. It 

 is desirable always to take fresh fibrine, for this digestibility 

 of the fibrine also decreased during the time it was kept. 



The mixtures of serum and fibrine were always put in test- 

 tubes of the same width and thickness, which were closed with 

 a cork. The solutions were placed in an incubator for about 

 16 hours in a temperature of sy'^C. Great care was also taken 

 to add equal pieces of fibrine to the different mixtures. This 

 was necessary from the point of view of comparison, as the 

 experiments taught that the intensity of the consuming process 

 was greater when the surface of the albumen increased. 



The peptic property of human serum in regard to coloured 

 horse-fibrine 1 determined in 2 ways : 



a. To equal quantities of undiluted or very little diluted 

 serum I added equally big, equally fresh and equally coloured 

 pieces of fibrine. From the stronger or weaker colour of the 

 liquid the intensity of the consuming-process was judged. 



b. Each serum was so far diluted with 0.9 % Na. CI. solution, 

 till consuming of fibrine no longer took place. The stronger the 

 fibrolytic power of a serum, the more it had to be diluted in 

 order to find this decisive point. Here is an example of an 

 experiment. 



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