134 PROPERTIES OF ANTI-SERUM TO SERUM 



duced by the injection of a normal serum, has been treated 

 of above, and their mode of action has been detailed. In 

 the present section we propose to deal with the anti-sub- 

 stances developed by the receptors of a normal serum, 

 these two bodies in conjunction leading to the absorption 

 or fixation of complement. We shall in the first place 

 refer to the work which has recently been done on this 

 subject. 



In 1902 Gengou 1 showed that when an anti-serum was 

 developed by the injection of various albuminoid substances 

 into an animal, the mixture of the substance and the anti- 

 substance might not only give rise to a precipitate, but 

 might also have the power of absorbing complement or 

 alexine. This phenomenon he regarded as analogous to 

 what was known to obtain with regard to hsemolytic sera 

 and bacteriolytic sera, and he spoke of the anti-substances 

 developed in the treated animals as ' sensibilisatrices 

 (immune-bodies) centres les substances albuminoids'. In 

 Ehrlich's terminology we may express this by saying that 

 the receptors in the albuminoid molecules give rise to 

 immune-bodies or amboceptors and that the combination of 

 the two takes up complement. Gengou obtained this result 

 with milk, egg-white, fibrinogen, and the serum of another 

 species of animal than that injected. Special attention has 

 recently been drawn to the subject by a paper by Moreschi 2 

 on the nature of anti-complements. An ' anti-complement ' 

 obtained by injecting a normal serum acts chiefly, as is well 

 known, on the serum (' complement ') injected ; but Moreschi 

 has shown that if a minute quantity of the homologous 

 serum is added to the anti-serum various complements may 

 be taken up that is, antagonized or, in other words, the 

 anti-serum behaves as an anti-complement to various com- 

 plements. He points out that an extremely minute quan- 



1 Gengou, Annales de VInst. Pasteur, 1902, p. 734. 



2 Moreschi, Berlin, klin. Wochenschr., 1905, p. 1,181. 



