HAEMOLYSIS 21 



found to have absorbed the immune body. The test can 

 be employed for other organisms and for red blood-cor- 

 puscles. 



The same complement will sensitise either haemolytic 

 or bacteriolytic immune bodies. A mixture of typhoid 

 bacilli, inactivated typhoid-immune serum, and guinea- 

 pig serum, is incubated at blood-heat for two hours, then 

 'sensitised' corpuscles (e.g., a mixture of inactivated 

 serum hsemolysing sheep corpuscles plus washed sheep 

 corpuscles) are added and incubation continued for a 

 further two hours. No haemolysis occurs. The bacillary 

 amboceptor has absorbed all the guinea-pig complement, 

 leaving none to activate the amboceptor of the serum 

 haemolytic for sheep corpuscles. Consequently no haemol- 

 ysis of the sheep corpuscles is possible (Bordet and Gengou 

 phenomenon). Should normal serum (inactivated, of 

 course) be used instead of typhoid-immune serum, there is 

 no amboceptor to absorb the guinea-pig complement, 

 and the latter is available for absorption by the inactivated 

 hsemolytic serum, and haemolysis occurs. 



The following test is based on this phenomenon: 

 Wassermann's Test (Fixation Test, or the Antigen Test). 

 A guinea-pig or rabbit is inoculated several times intra- 

 venously with the washed blood-corpuscles of a rabbit 

 or sheep, with the consequent production of a hsemolytic 

 serum specific for the corpuscles of a rabbit or sheep 

 respectively, and the serum is inactivated. An antigen 

 is prepared by mincing and triturating the liver of a 

 syphilitic foetus in physiological salt solution. The serum 

 from the patient (the test fluid) is inactivated in the same 

 way as the haemolytic serum by heating to 56 C. for 

 thirty minutes, thus destroying the alexin. A complement 

 is made by diluting guinea-pig serum tenfold. The test 

 fluid is added to the antigen extract, some complement 

 is added, and the mixture left for four hours at 20 C. 

 The faptnolytic, system, (a mixture of inactivated haemolytic 

 serum and the washed blood- corpuscles for which it is 

 specific) is added, and if after four hours no haemolysis has 

 taken place syphilitic taint is present. The antibody 

 in the patient's blood has attacked the treponem.es which 

 abound in the liver of the infected foetus, the complement 

 is absorbed, and there is none left to cause the inacti- 

 vated haemolytic serum to dissolve the blood-corpuscles. 



