340 LOCAL ILSSHE REACTIVITY 



C.iatia and Lin/ (onsidcr tlic phenomenon intimately allied 

 to anaphylaxis. Their reasons are as iollows: 



1. Severe reactions in several rabbits ^vere accompanied by 

 capillary stasis, fall of blood pressure, thrombopenia and delayed 

 blood coagidation. According to these authors these symptoms 

 are specific for anaphylactic shock, and they conclude that they 

 appear as a residt of the phenomenon without making any con- 

 trol studies on the effect of the bacterial filtrates upon normal 

 rabbits (without the phenomenon) . They employed, however, 

 tuidiluted broth cultiue filtrates incid^ated for several days, which 

 jDresinnably contained peptone and also a considerable amotmt 

 of bacterial split products. As well known, many substances in- 

 jected intravenously may bring about anaphylactoid reactions 

 with symptoms such as described in the experiments of Gratia 

 and Linz. Anaphylactoid reactions w-ere prodticed by Hanzlik, 

 Karsner and Fetterman (1919-20) with 71 substances among 

 Avhich peptone presented a notable example. Biedl and Kraus 

 (1909) studied the effect of intravenous injection of peptone into 

 dogs and considered peptone and anaphylactic shocks as identical. 



Burnet (1931) found that the phenomenon produces no sig- 

 nificant alteration in the blood platelet count of rabbits. 



P. Bordet (1936^, /;) did not notice any effect of the phenom- 

 enon upon the coagulation time even when the reactions ^vere 

 extremely severe. According to this author, the intra\'enous in- 

 jection of an active filtrate produces a leucopenia already well 

 pronounced ten minutes after the injection and rapidly progress- 

 ing during the several hours following w^hen the number of 

 leucocytes may be reduced to one-fifth of the count prior to the 

 injection. The leucopenia is due exclusively to the intravenotis 

 injection of the filtrate and has no bearing to the jDhenomenon. 

 The phenomenon also failed to influence the number of blood 

 platelets and the complement titer of the rabbits. 



Hematological, studies by Mintz in my laljoratories were made 

 on 61 rabbits, male and female, during a period of nine months. 

 The investigations included the following: 



Bleeding, coagulation, clot retraction and sedimentation time, 

 fragility tests; hemoglobin determinations; counts of red blood 

 cells and blood platelets; and total and differential counts of 

 white blood cells. Two or more series of each of the above 

 determinations were carried out on the following groups of 

 rabbits. 



