author's abstract of this paper issued 

 bt the bibliographic service, january 16 



STUDIES ON CYTOLYSINS 



III. EXPERIMENTS WITH SPERM ATOTOXTNS 



M. F. GUYER 

 Zoological Laboratory, University oj Wisconsin 



ONE FIGUEE 



After it had become established that the blood-serum of a 

 given animal acquires a marked solvent action for the red blood 

 corpuscles of another species if the red cells of the latter are in- 

 jected repeatedly into the animal in question, similar experi- 

 ments were tried with other kinds of cells. It soon became 

 established that lytic or toxic sera could be developed against 

 such substances as leucocytes, nervous tissue, and spermatozoa. 

 As long ago as 1899^ specific spermatolysins or spermatotoxins 

 were produced which .rapidly killed or at least immobilized the 

 spermatozoa of the species of animal used as the source of the 

 antigen. These early experiments were apparently all made on 

 spermatozoa in vitro, not in the hving animal. Later, however, 

 De Lester reported having rendered male mice sterile for from 

 sixteen to twenty days by the injection of such spermatotoxic 

 serum. 



To one interested in cytological and genetical problems it 

 becomes a matter of considerable importance to discover just 

 what can be done toward affecting spermatozoa in vivo, and if 

 they can be so affected, to determine how far back in their career 

 the effect is observable. That is, does it modify only the adult 

 spermatozoa, or does it influence also the spermatids, or possibly 

 the spermatocytes? 



1 Metchnikoff . Ann. Past., XIII, 1899. Von Dungern. Miinch. med. Woch., 

 S. 1228, 1899. 



207 



THE JOURNAL OP EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY, VOL. 35, NO. 2 



