ON SPECIFIC THERAPEUTICS. 45 



glands and necrosis of the intestinal mucosa 

 are the result of the one poison, corrosive 

 sublimate, the case is entirely different with 

 snake venom, for there each separate and indi- 

 vidual effect is the result of a different individual 

 poison. Thus, one can prove with absolute 

 certainty that the effect on the nervous tissues 

 is produced by the neurotoxin, that on the 

 blood corpuscles by a haemolysin, and the 

 inflammatory changes by a special endothelio- 

 toxin. It has been shown that those components 

 of snake venom which attack the red blood cor- 

 puscles are present in such a form that by 

 themselves they do not suffice to destroy them. 



By following up the researches of Flexner 

 and Calmette, my former assistant and friend, 

 Dr. Kyes, has succeeded in throwing some light 

 on these difficult subjects. He proved that the 

 haemolytic component of the cobra venom is an 

 amboceptor, which, however, differs from the 

 bacteriolytic amboceptors in not combining with 

 the complements of the blood, but which enters 

 into union with a chemically well-defined sub- 

 stance, lecithin. 



By shaking cobra venom solutions with a 

 solution of lecithin in chloroform, one can show 

 that the whole hsemolytic toxin passes quanti- 



