42 Isohjsin and Autolysin 



results to those which have been observed with the precipitins. It 

 remains to be seen whether the haemolysins offer greater advantages 

 in this respect than do the precipitins. 



Isolysin and Autolijmi. 



Ehrlich and Morgenroth {Ueber Hdmolysine, ill. 1900) term the 

 haemolysins formed in the bodies of animals treated with the corpuscles 

 of another species " heterolysins," so as to distinguish them from the 

 " isolysins," which are formed for the corpuscles of the same species. 

 They injected 920 c.c. of goats' blood, obtained from three animals, into 

 a goat. No haemolysis occurred, but after five days or more the treated 

 goat's serum was found to be markedly haemolytic for the blood 

 corpuscles of nine different goats, the tests being conducted in vitro. 



An " autolysin " is a haemolysin which acts upon the blood corpuscles 

 of the animal which yields the serum. Ehrlich (1901, Schlussbetracld- 

 iingen, p. 16, repr.) only succeeded once with Morgenroth in obtaining 

 autolysin, this being formed under the same conditions as the 

 isolysin. He injected the blood of a goat (a) into another goat (6), 

 and found the serum of goat (b) to haemolyse the corpuscles of (a). 

 The existence of isolysins and autolysins point therefore to individual 

 differences in animals belonging to the same species. 



Besredka (25, x. 1901, p. 788) considers the immune-body in autocy- 

 totoxins to be pr(ibably identical with the cytotoxins of another animal 

 when we exclude the complement which is peculiar to each species. 



The existence of isolysins and isoagglutinins in disease does not bear upon the 

 immediate subject of this paper. It is however well to mention that Griinbauni 

 (Brit. Med. Journ. i. p. 1089, 1900) found the serum of typhoid and scarlatina 

 patients to agglutinate the corpuscles of normal persons, or those affected not with 

 the same but with other diseases. Shattock {Journ. Pathol, and Bacteriol. vi. p. 303, 

 1900) confirmed this in cases of croupous pneumonia, typhoid, erysipelas, acute 

 articular rheumatism. Panichi has observed isoagglutinins in the serum of persons 

 experimentally infected with malaria, after six days, when no parasites could be 

 discovered in their blood. Eisenberg (17, x. 1901) as also Ascoli have found 

 isolysins and isoagglutinins in the blood after crisis from croupous pneumonia, 

 their appearance corresponding with the absorption of the hemorrhagic infiltration. 

 It would therefore seem as if the appearance of these antibodies in the blood 

 depended upon the resorption of blood corpuscles or their constituents. In se^en 

 out of eight cases of scarlatina with .slight clinical signs of blood destruction, 

 Eisenberg observed these antibodies. He denies that the isolysins and isoagglutinins 

 are specific for the diseases named, but that they simply indicate that corpuscles 

 are being de-stroyed, or reabsorbed, and consequently that their presence is not of 

 diagnostic importance. 



