1904.] Production of a Specific Gastrotoxic Serum. 141 



tissue being obviously broken up by the blood. It is a remarkable 

 fact that evidence of haemolysis should be found in the stomach and 

 not in the other organs of the body in these cases. 



Nature of the Gastrolytic Strum. The experiments which I have made 

 indicate that the gastrotoxin consists of an " immune body " or 

 "amboceptor," which is newly formed in the blood as a result of the 

 injection of the stomach cells, and a " complement " which is contained 

 in the normal blood serum. 



Effects of Heat. If the serum be heated to from 55 60 C. for 

 1 hour its action on injection into the guinea-pig is destroy ed, 

 although the control animals which are injected with unheated serum 

 show extensive necrosis of the stomach. On the other hand, if heated 

 serum be added to an equal volume of normal rabbit's serum, the 

 action is restored when the mixture is injected into the guinea-pig, 

 but the resulting lesions are not quite so extensive as in the case of 

 the unheated serum. 



The guinea-pig's complement does not appear to possess a hapto- 

 phoric affinity corresponding to the complementophile affinity of the 

 gastrolytic amboceptor. The action of a haemolysin, formed by 

 injecting a rabbit with guinea-pig's corpuscles, is, on the contrary, not 

 destroyed by heat; this agrees with the test-tube phenomenon that 

 guinea-pig's normal serum will reactivate the heated heemolytic serum 

 of a rabbit. 



Specificity of the Gastrotoxin, This property has been tested by 

 mixing various cells with gastrolytic serum previous to its injection 

 into the guinea-pig, in order to determine whether guinea-pig's- 

 stomach cells alone or whether any other cells could extract the 

 amboceptor. 



The cells were allowed to remain in contact with the serum for 

 1 hour at laboratory temperature, and were then centrifugalised off 

 and the supernatant serum injected. Control animals were in each 

 case injected with untreated serum. 



Admixture of Guinea-pig's Stomach Cells. Whether the stomach cells- 

 are washed free from blood or not they anchor the amboceptor and 

 carry it down on centrifugalisation, with the result that the serum is 

 rendered inactive on injection into the animal. 



Guinea-pig's Liver Cells. The liver cells washed free from blood fail 

 to extract the amboceptor, and necrosis of the stomach results when 

 the serum is injected. 



Guinea-pig's lied Blood Corpuscles. The experiment was done in two 

 ways, and in each case the red corpuscles failed to extract the 

 amboceptor. In one case the gastrolytic serum was cooled to C. 

 and mixed with the corpuscles ; the mixture being kept at C. for 

 1 hour, was afterwards centrifugalised. In another case the serum 

 was heated to 60 C. for an hour ; excess of red corpuscles was then 



