MECHANISM OF HEMOLYSIS 213 



takes place tluoufih the coipusculur substance, which is not visibly 

 altered; in serum hemolysis there is first a precipitate formed in the 

 outer layer, which swells. There is no evidence that the erythrocj^tes 

 contain proteolytic enzymes of their own that might disintegrate 

 them.'*' 



The fact that chloroform, ether, bile salts, soaps, and amjd alcohol 

 will cause hiking is probably intimately connected with the fact that 

 lecithin and cholesterol, important constituents of the stroma, are 

 both soluble in these substances.''' In general it can be said that 

 iiemolytic agents dissolve lipoids or hydrolyze proteins or lipoids, 

 thus destroying the power of the stroma to retain the hemoglobin.^* 

 Nearly all the non-specific hemolytic agents are inhibited to greater 

 or less degree by the serum, in which inhibition both the proteins and 

 cholesterol are concerned. '^^ Cholesterol also influences many other 

 inununity reactions, inhibiting some and stimulating others.*" The 

 resistance of the corpuscles to hemolj'sis by various agents differs 

 greatly in disease, although fairly constant in normal blood, the dif- 

 ferences being caused in some cases by changes in the permeability of 

 the corpuscles, and sometimes by changes in the environment of the 

 corpuscle or the presence of protective substances in either the cor- 

 puscles or the plasma. 



Arseniuretted hydrogen, when inhaled, causes intravascular hemo- 

 lysis, and there are many other drugs and chemicals with the same 

 property, among which may be mentioned nitrobenzol, nitroglycerin 

 and the nitrites, guaiacol, pyrogallol, acetanilid, and numerous aniline 

 compounds. Probably the hemolysis produced by autolytic products 

 belongs in this category."*^ Alcoholic extracts of tissues are com- 

 monly hemolytic; these extracts when added to serum take on prop- 

 erties which cause them to resemble closely hemolytic complement 

 (Noguchi), and the soaps seem to be the active constituents of the 

 extracts. AsHs, although strongly hemolytic in the living body, does 

 not hemolyze corpuscles in the test tube (Heffter), and this is true 

 of some other poisons, which probablj' produce their effects through 

 tissue changes. •^^ The bile acids and their salts will also produce 

 hemolysis, as seen in jaundice. Sodium bicarbonate solutions of one 

 or two per cent, are hemolytic for some varieties of corpuscles, but 

 0.1 per cent. Na2C03 and NaHCOs do not cause hemolysis. A study 

 of the hemotytic properties of one class of lipolytic hemolytic agents, 



38 Von Roques, Biochem. Zeit., 1914 (64), 1. 



" See Koeppe, Pfiiiger's Arch., 1903 (99), 33; Peskind, Amer. Jour. Phys., 1904 

 (12), 184; Moore, Brit. Med. Jour., 1909 (ii), 684. 



38 See Herzfeld and Klinger, Biochem. Zeit., 1918 (87), 36. 



" See V. Eisler, Zeit. exp. Path., 1906 (3), 296. 



*° Walbum, Zeit. Iminunitiit., 1910 (7), 544; Dewey and Nuzum, Jour. Infect. 

 Dis., 1914 (15), 472. 



" Concerning hemolysis b.y alcohols, ketones, etc., organic acids, and essences 

 see Vandevelde, Bull. Soc. chim. de Belgique, 1905 (19), 288. 



" Friedberger and Brossa, Zeit. Immunitat., 1912 (15), 506. 



