Immune- Body and Complement 21 



bodies in snake venoms, for venom solution treated with tlie washed blood corpuscles 

 of the dog, rabbit, and guinea-pig in succession was found to give up to each a part 

 of its intermediary bodies, no one kind of corpuscle being capable of fixing the 

 entire content of intermediary bodies. It therefore appears as if there might be 

 an indefinite number of intermediary bodies in venom. When a complement 

 foreign to the corpuscles is used it never causes complete haemolysis. It is evident 

 that these results with venom are very similar to those of Ehrlich with haemo- 

 lytic sera. 



That different immune-bodies and complements may coexist in a serum has been 

 shown by Wendelstadt (16, iv. 1902) who treated animals with different bloods 

 simultaneously, for instance with the blood of the ox, sheep, and pig, finding three 

 immune-bodies and three complements in their serum ; the complement for the 

 pig being more resistant to heat than the others. 



Ehrlich and Morgenroth found that they could not obtain anti-complement when 

 they treated an animal with complement derived from a closely related species, but 

 they obtained it readily in many cases where the relationship was distant. The 

 injection of goat serum into the sheep and vice versa did not give rise to anti- 

 (,;omplement. This observation is quite in accord with what has been observed with 

 regard to the formation of precipitins. 



An excess of immune-hody may impede haemolysis upon the addition of com- 

 plement, as Nolf observed in haemolysing fowl corpuscles with the immune serum 

 of the rabbit ; moreover Neisser and Doring are cited by Eisenberg (v. 1902, 

 p. 303) as having made an analogous observation when haemolysing rabbit cor- 

 puscles with human serum from a case of chronic nephritis. Ide (27, vil. 1902, 

 p. 273) has confirmed this. For an explanation of this interesting phenomenon 

 of " Komplementablenkung " see Neisser and Wechsberg (1901), who observed that 

 an excess of immune-body prevented the action of a bacteriolytic serum ; as did 

 also Lipstein (16, iv. 1902), and Walker (i. 1903). 



That the normal haemolytic action of eel serum upon rabbit corpuscles can be 

 prevented by specific anti-haemolytic serutn has been shown by Camus and Gley 

 (29, I. 1898) and Kossel (14, ii. 1898) experimenting with the serum of rabbits 

 immunified against the serum of the eel. The rabbits were treated with increasing 

 doses of eel serum, for which they gradually dcvelo[)ed increasing quantities of 

 antitoxin (otherwise anti-haemolysin), this being confirmed by Tchistovitch (1899). 

 Bordet (1900) also found that the serum of a guinea-pig immunified with rabbit 

 corpuscles, when injected in carefully graded doses into a rabbit (being highly 

 haemolytic), caused the formation of anti-haemolysin in the rabbit, the anti- 

 body preventing haemolysis. The experiment was reversed by Schiitze (5, vii. 

 1901) with similar result. Schiitze thought he could trace the formation of the 

 anti-haemolysin to the action of the immune-body, for he treated the guinea-pigs 

 with complement-free (heated) rabbit serum. Miiller (21, ii. 1901) also treated 

 rabbits with heated fowl serum, the antiserum obtained being anti-haemolytic. 

 Ehrlich and Morgenroth (1901), however, consider that Schiitze, and Miiller, by 

 heating their sera, converted the complement into complementoid (analogous to 

 toxoid) and that the anti-haemolytic action they observed depended upon anti- 

 complement ; for the complementoids, although incapable of acting upon corpuscles, 

 give rise, when injected, to anti-complements. Miiller (21, ii. 1901, p. 185) failed 



