218 VENOMOUS SNAKES AND THE PHENOMENA OF THEIR VENOMS 
minutes; the venom itself was neutralized by antivenin after it had already 
done its destructive work on alexine. Calmette and Noc regarded this as 
the complement-fixation by venom amboceptor. 
In 1908 Morgenroth and Kaya * found that the complement of guinea-pig 
“serum is destroyed by cobra venom after several hours’ contact at 37°C. or 
room temperature, but not so much at o®° C. Such serum is unable to activate 
cobra venom for hemolyzing the corpuscles of goat blood, although simul- 
taneous admixture of the serum, cobra venom, and the corpuscles results in 
the completion of hemolysis. Coincidentally the complementary function 
of the serum for the anti-goat hemolytic amboceptor (from immunized rabbit) 
is seen to have been diminished considerably. These authors consider the 
destruction of the complement in this case to be due to the action of certain 
ferment-like bodies present in the venom. They found that this anticom- 
plementary function of cobra is lost on boiling. 
It is not at all improbable that the disappearance of the complement is due 
to the action of proteolytic ferment already described by Flexner and Noguchi 
and by Noc, although nothing definite can be said about the mechanism. 
1 Morgenroth and Kaya. Ueber eine komplementzerstérende Wirkung des Kobragiftes. Biochem. 
Zeitschrift, 1908, VIII, 378. 
