III. PROPAGATION OF TRANSNATURATION & MULTIPLICATION 55 



saponin, HgCls, and antiserum with complement, agreed well with this 

 reasoning. 



Firstly, it was confirmed that there was a certain incubation period 

 between the addition of haemolytic agent and the commencement of 

 haemolysis. This incubation period is expected from the above reason- 

 ing. Secondarily, it was found that this period is inversely proportional 

 to the concentration of the agent, showing that the changing rate of 

 stroma is directly proportional to the concentration. This fact may 

 indicate that the haemolytic agent acts as a kind of catalyzer ; if 

 the blood cell protoplasm undergoes a change in a maryier described 

 above following the combination with the agent, the degee of the 

 change should be directly proportional to the amount of the agent 

 combining with it, and hence the haemolytic agent may appear in its 

 action to be a sort of catalyzer. 



The action of the haemolytic agents accordingly is comparable to 

 that of partially inactivated viruses, which fail to produce replica but 

 capable of disturbing the protoplasm structure. Thus, the fact that 

 weak virus particles cannot act as the virus unless many particles are 

 put together may be explained in this respect ; namely, the protoplasm 

 change caused by the virus is proportional to the virus amount combin- 

 ing with it, so that even a weak virus may overcome the protoplasm 

 if many particles are present. 



In this connection a more detailed discussion will be made on the 

 experimental results obtained with saponin and rabbit blood cells. The 

 relationship between saponin concentration and the time required for 

 the haemolysis completion was found to be as indicated in Table 5. 



Table 5. 

 Ralation between the Concentration of Saponin and the Time Required 

 for the Completion of Hemolysis by the Saponin Concentration. 



Concentration 

 of saponin, %. 



(C). 



0.1 



X 



X 



cm[co 

 X 



X 



X 



Time required for 

 the completion of 

 hemolysis, sec. 



(t). 



71 



84 



109 



142 



230 



420 



1020 



1/t, (K). 



0.0141 0.0119 



0.0092 0.0072 0.0043 



0.0024 



0.0010 



Saponin haemolysis is very fitted for such observations as the haemo- 

 lysis is completed in short periods if once begins to occur. 



In this table the time interval between saponin addition and the 



