SNAKE TOXINES. 225 



and SACHS, 1 in Erhlich's Institute, and new and extremely 

 interesting discoveries were also made with regard to the 

 relationship between snake venom and the chemical substances 

 in the corpuscles of the blood. In the first place, it was found 

 by KYES that there were two sorts of blood-corpuscles viz., 

 those dissolved by cobra venom (such as, e.g., those of the 

 guinea-pig, dog, man, rabbit, and horse), and others that were 

 only dissolved with the aid of a complement e.g., those of the 

 ox, sheep, and goat. KYES next found suitable complements 

 for these, and was thus able to confirm FLEXNER'S conclusion 

 as to the complex structure of cobra lysine. 



In the case of those that were soluble by themselves, KYES 

 was able to disprove the assumption of a simple lysine of the 

 type of ricine by the fact that haemolysis occurred with dilute, 

 but not with concentrated, solutions of the poison, which would 

 obviously be out of the question in the case of simple poisons. 

 Such a decrease in the action of poisons added in excess is only 

 explicable on the assumption of a diversion of the complement 

 by the excess of amboceptors, as was first demonstrated by NEISSER 



and WECHSBERG. 2 



It was found that the blood-corpuscles themselves contained a 

 complement, which could be fixed and diverted by the excess 

 of amboceptors. This endo-complement passed into solution on 

 treatment of the blood-corpuscles with water, and then the 

 originally insoluble blood-corpuscles also became susceptible to 

 the action of the cobra poison. 



This endo-complement is destroyed by exposure to a tem- 

 perature of 62 C. for thirty minutes. Sometimes, too, it can 

 be washed almost completely out of the blood-corpuscles by 

 means of physiological salt solution. The discovery of such 

 complements in red blood -corpuscles is very interesting, as 

 bearing upon the views of the French school that the leuco- 

 cytes are invariably the source of the complements. 



KYES also endeavoured to explain why heated serum is still 

 able to bring about the action of the poison, in which case 

 there can be no question of complements ; even boiling the 

 serum for an hour does not injure this power. In his opinion, 

 the substance possessing this stimulative power is lecithin, which 

 also acts as a "complement" for cobra venom when dissolved 

 in methyl alcohol. The two enter into so firm a combination 



1 Kyes and Sachs, "Zur Kenntn. d. Cobragift aktivierenden Subst.," 

 Berl. klin. Woch., 1903, Nos. 2-4 (reprint). 



2 Neisser and Wechsberg, "Ueb. d. Wirkungsart baktericider Sera," 

 Munch, med. Woch., 1901, No. 18 (reprint). 



15 



