VENOM HAMOLYSIS AND VENOM AGGLUTINATION 175 
various crotaline snakes, Crotalus adamanteus, C. terrificus, C. confluentus, 
Ancistrodon contortrix, and A. piscivorus, do not contain complements and 
are inactive without the help of second substances of certain blood serums. 
They found that even repeated washings fail, with some samples, to prevent 
subsequent dissolution when mixed with cobra venom. With the corpuscles 
of dogs the removal of serum had the least influence on the retardation of 
hemolysis. In explaining this phenomenon they assumed the presence of 
intracellular complements in these corpuscles. In fact, Flexner and Noguchi 
succeeded in extracting intracellular complements from the dog’s corpuscles 
by suspending them in the heated serum over night. If the heated serum is 
separated next day from the corpuscles by centrifugalization and then tested 
for its hemolytic property on washed corpuscles of guinea-pig, there will be 
more or less marked hemolysis. The controls with the heated serum of dog 
or the saline supernatant of the washed corpuscles of dog do not cause any 
hemolysis. When the washed corpuscles of dog are repeatedly digested in 
the heated serum of dog (suspension and washing in several successions) 
the susceptibility of the digested corpuscles to the hemolytic action of cobra 
venom is seen to be far less than that of the corpuscles simply washed re- 
peatedly in isotonic saline solution. This phenomenon is of a dual nature, 
due sometimes to the removal of intracellular venom activators and then to 
absorption by the cells of the anticomplementary principle’ which has 
developed in the heated serum of dog. 
Flexner and Noguchi then studied the nature of venom-intermediary 
bodies,” especially in regard to their cytophilic and complementophilic groups. 
The remarkable feature of venom-intermediary bodies is that they are active 
with various kinds of foreign blood serums. Those who have worked with 
normal and immune serum hemolysins must recognize that the complemento- 
philic groups of the amboceptors of these serums are better fitted with the 
native complements, hence more active in that combination. In other words, 
as shown by Ehrlich, Morgenroth, Sachs, Neisser, and Doering, the native 
serum contains more suitable complements for the homologous amboceptors 
than the foreign serums. Now, why are venom amboceptors active in the 
presence of foreign serums? What will be the result when we furnish them 
with their homologous complements? What will be the relation of venom 
amboceptors to the native and foreign serum complements? 
In this series the venoms employed were fresh and the complements were 
obtained by allowing the given kind of corpuscles to absorb all specific serum 
amboceptors for them by the cold method. The complements employed 
were from the serums of Crotalus adamanteus, Ancistrodon piscivorus, and 
Pityophis cateniferis. Each complement was tested for its activating value 
for the hemolytic amboceptors of cobra, moccasin, copperhead, and rattle- 
snake venoms. The corpuscles subjected to the action of the combination 
of snake complement and venom in variable orders were those of the dog and 
1 Noguchi. On the thermostabile anticomplementary constituents of the blood. Jour. of Exper. 
Medicine, 1906, VIII, 726. 
2 Intermediary body = Ehrlich’s amboceptor and Bordet’s substance sensibilisatrice. 
