142 ABBOTT AND BERGEY — ALCOHOLIC INTOXICATION. [Aprils, 



fixing, on the one hand, bacteria, and on the other a *' comple- 

 ment " having the power to destroy such bacteria, the relation of 

 receptor to bacteria and to complement being in both cases specific. 



The question under consideration by us was : 



'*Will the sera of animals under the influence of alcohol for 

 varying lengths of time, but otherwise normal, restore to a heated 

 immune serum its haemolytic activity in the same way as is done by 

 the normal sera of non-alcoholized animals? " 



If it will, then the action of alcohol upon the animal organism 

 is plainly not evidenced through a reduction in the amount of the 

 complementary substance so necessary to normal resistance and to 

 immunity. If it will not, then the reverse must be the case. 



Should the serum of animals under the influence of alcohol prove 

 to be poorer in haemolytic ^' complement " than that of animals not 

 so treated, then there is some justification for the belief that the re- 

 duction of resistance to bacterial infections, noted in our work of 

 1896, may be due to the suppression (in part or in whole) of a '' com- 

 plementary " ''proteolytic ferment " (?) that constitutes one of 

 the natural defenses of the body against the invasion of infective 

 bacteria. Without discussing our results in detail, it suffices to say 

 that we found in a number of animals daily intoxicated for a period 

 of about three weeks, the amount of '' complement " in their sera 

 to be from fifteen to twenty-five per cent, less than that of normal 

 sera, as determined by the power to ^' reactivate " a heated immune 

 serum — /. e., to restore to it its haemolytic properties, a result that 

 we regard as of fundamental importance in explaining (in part at 

 least) the results of investigations made in 1896. 



In the course of this work a number of important collateral 

 questions arose, the most significant of which being as to whether 

 the effect noted by us could be interpreted as a general reduction 

 of all complementary substances^ in the blood, or as only a reduc- 

 tion of a single complement specifically concerned in the phenom- 

 enon of haemolysis ; but as their solution is as yet only in the initial 

 stages, it is scarcely necessary to introduce them at this time. 



1 It is believed by Erhlich and Morgenroth and their associates that the blood 

 contains a multiplicity of complementary elements, each one of which is specifi- 

 cally related to particular receptors and to particular irritants and intoxicants; 

 while Buchner, Bordet, Metschnikoff and their adherents contend that the com- 

 plement, designated by Buchner and Bordet as ** alexine " and by Metschnikoff 

 as "cytase," is a single substance possessed of heterogeneous affinities. 



