88 VENOMOUS SNAKES AND THE PHENOMENA OF THEIR VENOMS 
lecithin and sufficient cobra venom, shaken as usual. He obtained four 
preparations: 
Substance I. A spontaneous precipitate formed in the watery layer when the 
latter is separated from chloroform (lecithin solution) by means of 1 volume ether 
and two-fifths volume of alcohol. It gives a biuret reaction and many other protein 
reactions — precipitation by potassic ferrocyanide, acetic acid, nitric acid, tannic 
acid, picric acid, and alcoholic cadmium chloride solution. Hzemolytically very 
weak (one-tenth of the original venom), but can be complemented with lecithin. 
Substance II. Obtained by first precipitating the watery portion with 5 per 
cent phenol, then the oily matter which separates out thereby is again precipitated 
with alcohol. The precipitate has the property of becoming ro times more hemo- 
lytic than the native venom when combined with enough lecithin, but otherwise is 
almost inactive. 
Substance III. Obtained by precipitating the filtrate (of the alcohol-soluble 
oily fraction, after separation of substance II) with ether. This is gelatinous 
and water-soluble, has about the same strength as the native venom. Requires 
lecithin to be active. 
Substance IV. Precipitate obtained by treating the filtrate (the soluble portion 
from which oily matter was removed by phenol) with alcohol. 
These bodies are called by Kyes incomplete lecithids, which differ from 
the complete lecithid in their insolubility in alcohol. Of these four, sub- 
stance II is neutralizable by antivenin, while some of the incomplete lecithids 
remain unaffected. Complete lecithid is not reactive to antivenin, but is 
said to be able to produce anti-serum, which neutralizes lecithid and native 
venom equally. 
Snake venoms are not the only class of bodies which produce hemolysis 
in the presence of lecithin. 
Pascucci! has shown that ricin becomes hemolytic when mixed with leci- 
thin. Landsteiner and Jagic? discovered that the colloidal silicic acid, 
which like ricin is usually only agglutinating, becomes upon the addition 
of lecithin highly hemolytic. Landsteiner and Jagi¢ explain this phenom- 
enon as due to the adsorption of lecithin to the corpuscles previously or 
simultaneously impregnated with the colloidal silicic acid. Naturally they 
found that lecithin is by itself more or less hemolytic even without the inter- 
mediation of this colloid. 
Later, Landsteiner and Jagic * also found that the shaking of the mixture 
of aqueous solution of colloidal hydrate of iron and choloroform solution of 
lecithin gives rise to a new compound of these two bodies precipitable from 
chloroform by a large quantity of ether. This relation is exactly what takes 
place when venom and lecithin are shaken under the same conditions. 
Reiss ‘ states that chloroform solution of lecithin can take up lac and trypsin 
from aqueous solutions, but these ferments, which apparently had gone over 
1 Pascucci. Ueber die Wirkung des Ricins auf Lecithin. Hofm. Beitr. zur chem. Physiol. u. Pathol., 
1906, VII, 457. i 
2 Landsteiner and Jagic. Ueber Analogien der Wirkung kolloidaler Kieselsiure mit den Reaktionen 
der Immunk6rper und verwandter Stoffe. Wien. klin. Woch., 1904, XVII, 63. 
Landsteiner and Jagic. Ueber Reaktionen anorganischer Kolloide und Immunké6rperreaktionen. 
Miinch. med. Woch., 1904, LI, 1185. Michaelis and Ehrenreich. Die Adsorptionsanalyse 
_ der Fermente. Biochem. Zeitschr., 1908, X, 283. 
‘Reiss. Eine Beziehung des Lecithins zu Fermenten. Berl. klin. Woch., 1904, XLI, 1185. 
