206 VENOMS 
B.—Cyrozyric ACTION. 
Simon Flexner and Noguchi’ have observed that the venoms 
of Naja, Ancistrodon, Crotalus, Vipera russellii, and Lachesis 
flavoviridis, contain substances which possess the property of dis- 
solving a large number of the cells of warm-blooded and cold- 
blooded animals, and that these cytolysins are very markedly 
resistant to high temperatures. 
They employed for their experiments 5 per cent. emulsions 
of organs, spermatozoids, or ova in physiological saline solution. 
The solution of venom at a strength of 1 per cent. was kept 
in contact with the different kinds of cells for three hours at 
a temperature of 0°C.; the liquid was then centrifuged and 
examined with the naked eye and under the microscope. 
The venoms experimented upon dissolved more or less rapidly 
the parenchymatous cells of the liver, kidney and testicle of 
the dog, guinea-pig, rabbit, rat and sheep. The most active 
venoms in this respect were those of Vipera russellit, Ancistrodon 
and the Cobra; the venom of Crotalus was the least active. 
With regard to the nerve-cells, spermatozoids and ova of 
cold-blooded animals (frogs, fish, arthropods, worms, and echino- 
derms) Cobra-venom proved to be the most active; then that 
of Ancistrodon, and lastly that of Crotalus. 
These cytolysins are not destroyed by heating for thirty minutes 
at 85°C. in a damp medium, nor by dry heating for fifty minutes 
at 100° C. 
C.—BACTERIOLYTIC ACTION. 
If we bring into contact with a 1 per cent. solution of Cobra- 
venom, rendered aseptic by filtration through porcelain, sensitive 
micro-organisms, such as the cholera vibrio, or the bacterium 
of anthrax in a very young non-sporulated culture, or in its 
' “On the Plurality of Cytolysins in Snake-venom,” University of Penn- 
sylvania Medical Bulletin, vol. xvi., 1903, p. 165. 
