SECTION D. ON THE HJEMOLYTIC BECEPTOBS 

 OP THE BED COBPUSCLES 



The molecules in the red corpuscles with which an immune- 

 body combines are generally known by the name of ' recep- 

 tors ', applied to them by Ehrlich, they may be called 

 haemolytic receptors, to distinguish them from other mole- 

 cules of the same class. We may also put the matter in 

 another form, and say that the receptors on injection give 

 rise to the production of anti-receptors. Further, the com- 

 bination receptor plus anti-receptor has the power of taking 

 up complement, haemolysis resulting from this union. 

 In the following research we have dealt with certain 

 questions as to the properties of the molecules which act 

 as receptors in haemolysis and as antigens for immune- 

 bodies when the red corpuscles of an animal are injected 

 into another of different species. The question as to what 

 part of the red corpuscle contains the receptors has been 

 the subject of a certain number of investigations, of which 

 a short resume may be given. 



V. Dungern 1 (1899) found that after lysis was produced by laking 

 agents the receptors were detectable neither in the stromata nor in 

 the haemoglobin-containing fluid, and he concluded that the receptors 

 were labile bodies, and were destroyed in the process of laking. He 

 used the corpuscles of the goose, and the injections were made into 

 rabbits. Lysis was produced by water and ether, and the stromata 

 were then dissolved in 5 per cent, magnesium sulphate, or in 1 per 

 cent, hydrochloric acid ; the molecules might therefore have under- 

 gone important chemical changes. Bordet 2 (1900) found that the 

 stromata had the power of fixing immune-body and thereafter of 

 fixing complement, and that the injection of stromata produced 

 a hsemolytic serum ; on the contrary, only negative results were 

 obtained when the clear fluid, obtained by centrifugalization after 



1 V. Dungern, Miinchen. med. Woch., 1899, p. 449. 



3 Bordet, Annales de VInst. Pasteur, 1900, vol. xiv, p. 257. 



