48 EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES 



this is not the case with sheep or ox corpuscles. 

 These latter, however, are also dissolved if 

 a small amount of lecithin is added to the 

 mixture. 



How is one to explain the fact that cobra 

 venom cannot by itself dissolve certain kinds of 

 blood? 



It has been shown that in all bloods lecithin 

 is present in fairly large quantities. If in spite 

 of that only certain kinds of blood are affected 

 by cobra venom, this must be explained by the 

 assumption that in every blood lecithin is not 

 present in the free state, but that it is combined 

 with certain substances of the erythrocyte's 

 stroma, and that the firmness of this union 

 differs considerably in the different kinds of 

 blood. That even in the resistant erythrocytes 

 e.g., those of the sheep lecithin is present as 

 the activating substance, can easily be proved 

 by breaking down the compound of proteid and 

 lecithin. This can be done by extracting with 

 alcohol. The alcoholic extract of sheep's blood 

 corpuscles can be shown to activate a mixture 

 of snake venom and sheep's corpuscles. 



The results are different if, instead of cobra 

 venom, other poisons are employed. Thus, the 

 poison of Bothrops lanceolatus is absolutely unable 



