210 VENOMS 
In tube 4, which received venom alone, hæmolysis 1s also produced 
in one hour. It is not produced at all in tubes 2 and 3, which 
received the neutral mixture of fresh serum and venom, proving that 
the hæmolytic alexin has been fixed by the venom. The latter, 
therefore, here plays the part of a true fixator or amboceptor. 
Venom behaves, in short, after the manner of extracts of organs. 
The fixation of hemolytic alexin by extracts of organs, the tissues, 
and animal cells (liver, spleen, spermatozoids, &c., &c.), has already 
been demonstrated by V. Dungern, P. Miiller, Levaditi, and E. 
Hoke. The same fact is also observed with solutions of peptone. 
The fixation of alexin is therefore a general property of certain 
albuminoid molecules. | 
It was interesting to endeavour to reproduce, with Cobra-venom, 
J. Bordet’s experiments upon alexins and anti-alexins. It was to 
be hoped that we had in this substance an anti-alexic body capable 
of being preserved for an indefinite time and constant in its activity, 
which would enable us easily to measure the dose of alexin con- 
tained in a small quantity of a serum, or other liquid of leucocytic 
origin. 
The experiment proved to Noc that, contrary to the ideas of 
Ehrlich and his pupils, and conformably to the results obtained 
by Bordet with serums and toxins, the neutralisation of venom 
takes place in a variable ratio. 
If a dose A of fresh serum is capable of neutralising exactly 
5 miligrammes of Cobra-venom with regard to a sensitive microbe, 
on employing a dose of the strength of 2 A we ought to find a 
bactericidal dose, 1 A, in the excess of serum, according to the 
theory of definite proportions. No such bactericidal action is seen, 
however; the serum, on the other hand, acts in the contrary direc- 
tion by means of its nutritive substances, and in the mixture 2 A + 
venom we obtain a larger number of colonies of micro-organisms 
than in the mixture A + venom. 
We see, then, that the property of cells of fixing in excess the 
active substance in serums, discovered by Bordet for the hæmoly- 
