VENOM HAMOLYSIS AND VENOM AGGLUTINATION 193 
no longer attacked and rendered lytic by the otherwise active native venom 
of the lecithid. 
At the same time von Dungern and Coca show that a subminimal hemo- 
lytic dose of cobra lecithid becomes a complete hemolyzing dose if enough 
of lecithin be added to the mixture, showing that there is still present in the 
so-called pure lecithid enough lecithin-splitting venom component. On the 
other hand, the antihzemolytic powers of the heated normal and immune 
rabbit serums do not differ if they are tested against the lecithid which had 
been heated to 100° C. for 3 hours, because here the specific anti-body is not 
concerned in the reaction. In the case of the heated normal serum the 
lecithin remains unattacked by the lecithid without the adhering native 
venom and there will be no more hemolysis than in the case of the fresh serum. 
Von Dungern and Coca do not consider it necessary to assume that cobra 
lecithid is a chemical compound of venom and lecithin, but entertain the 
view that the hemolytic substance is only a split product of lecithin and is 
contaminated with a minute quantity of native venom component, the latter 
playing but little part in the hemolytic activity of the whole lecithid. 
From various preparations of ovolecithin they were able to isolate a highly 
hemolytic substance with all the physical and biological characteristics of 
cobra lecithid, except that it did not show evidence of the adherence of native 
cobra venom, and hence no increase in its lytic power by lecithin addition and 
no antilysin formation in the animal body. Its hemolytic activity was 
about half that of cobra lecithid. 
In a subsequent paper’ von Dungern and Coca attempted to solve the 
mechanism of venom hemolysis induced by adding oleic acid or sodium oleate 
in subminimal inherent hemolytic quantities. As already stated, Noguchi, 
among many other acrylic acids and soaps, found these two chemicals espe- 
cially suitable for rendering the blood corpuscles hemolyzable by venom. 
Von Dungern and Coca treated the ox corpuscles with cobra-venom solu- 
tion for 1 hour (20 c.c. 5 per cent corpuscular suspension and 2 c.c. 1 per cent 
cobra-venom solution), and then, after separation from the venom, their sus- 
ceptibility to the hemolytic action of oleic acid and sodium oleate was tested. 
The result shows that the degree of hemolysis is the same whether the cor- 
puscles have been venomized or not. Thus they could find no comparison 
between the hemolytic serum complement and these oleic compounds. Then 
they tried to ascertain if cobra venom can act directly on these chemicals and 
render them more active, but this was found not to be the case. On the 
contrary, oleate soap, if allowed to act long, rather diminished than increased 
the action of cobra venom when there was no blood or lecithin in the mixture. 
However, if the soap, venom, and lecithin are allowed to remain in contact 
for a much longer period, the hemolytic activity of such mixture is rather 
greater than that of a mixture in which soap is added at the same time as or 
just before the addition of blood. Oleic acid always exerts an accelerating 

1 Von Dungern and Coca. Ueber Hamolyse durch Kombination von Oelsiure oder élsaures Natrium 
und Kobragift. Miinch. med. Woch., 1908, LV, ros. 
