50 TOXINES AND ANTJTOXINES. 



The processes that take place during the combination of the 

 toxines with the receptors of the living cells can obviously never be 

 investigated by this method of examination. Hence, naturally", 

 it has only been employed to throw light upon those processes in 

 which we can watch their progress and result in vitro e.g., in 

 haemolysis. Here again we have to thank EHRLICH that we 

 possess exact methods of measurement for these processes. 



Thus, the first important research in this new field deals with 

 hcemolysis under the influence of simple blood poisons, on the one 

 hand, and of specific blood-solvent haptines, such as tetanolysine, 

 on the other. 



ARRHENIUS and MADSEN 1 investigated the course of haemo- 

 lysis under the influence of ammonia, sodium hydroxide, and 

 tetanolysine. 



The material used in the tests for haemolysis was a 2-5 per 

 cent, emulsion of the corpuscles of horse's blood washed 

 thoroughly free from serum, and suspended according to re- 

 quirement in physiological solutions of sodium chloride or cane 

 sugar. The amount of haemolysis was measured colorimetrically 

 by comparison with solutions of horse's blood, solutions of the 

 strength of 2-5 c.c. in 100 c.c. of distilled water being taken to 

 represent 100, and a colour scale prepared by corresponding 

 dilution. 



For comparative determinations with constant amounts of 

 blood (invariably 10 c.c. of the above emulsion), the only suitable 

 interval is that relatively small one beneath whose lower limit 

 haemolysis just begins, and above whose upper limit it is 

 complete. 



The first result ascertained by this method is that haemolysis 

 increases very rapidly with the rise in the amount of toxine 

 added, 2 so that, as a rough approximation, it is proportional to 

 the square of concentration of the toxine. 



Now the " concentration " of the solvent agent does not corre- 

 spond absolutely with the amount added. Thus, in the case of 

 ammonia and sodium hydroxide, a certain proportion enters into 

 combination with the blood-corpuscles, and does not contribute 

 to the concentration. With tetanolysine, however, this com- 



1 Arrhenius and Madsen, "Anwendg. d. physik. Ch. auf d. Stud, der 

 Toxine u. Antitoxine," Z. physik. Ch., xliv., 1, 1903. 



2 Arrhenius and Madsen give the collective name ' ' toxine " to these 

 blood-solvent agents, while they term the specific haptine "lysine." Un- 

 fortunately, this use of the term "toxine" is liable to create confusion, 

 since it is not in accordance with the present happy limitation of the word 

 to haptines. 



