ii2 MILK AND ITS HYGIENIC RELATIONS 



CHAPTER VI 



THE SO-CALLED ' BIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES ' OF MILK (continued) 



B. THE SUBSTANCES CONCERNED IN THE PRODUCTION 

 OF IMMUNITY 



On the Presence of Substances concerned in Haemolysis. A 



good deal of work has been carried out in order to determine 

 whether either of the haemolytic factors complement or amboceptor 

 or both were normally present in milk. For the investigation 

 of this matter it is necessary to use an appropriate system. 



The earliest investigations, which were carried out by Pfaundler 

 and Moro (i), showed evidence of the presence of complement 

 in cows' milk. The system used by these observers consisted of 

 guinea-pigs' corpuscles -\- inactive ox serum, 

 + raw milk. 



This system is known to be a suitable one on the supposition that 

 the complement contained in milk will be identical with that 

 present in ox blood. 



Shortly afterwards Kopf, working in Schlossmann's laboratory 

 under Bauer, and using the same system, was unable to detect 

 the presence of complement in ordinary milk, although he obtained 

 evidence of its presence in colostrum. 



Sassenhagen and Bauer showed, further, that complement is 

 easily demonstrable in milk of a cow suffering from mastitis, and 

 they believed that this test formed a useful method of diagnosing 

 the presence of mastitis before clinical observation was able to 

 detect the presence of this trouble. 



Investigations carried out by myself in 1908 led me to believe 

 that complement was normally present in cows' milk. The con- 

 dition of the cows from which the samples of milk used by me 

 were obtained was, however, not known, and it is not unlikely 

 that had this information been forthcoming the presence of the 

 complement found by me might have been explained on lines 

 in agreement with the work of other authors. 



Sassenhagen in 1910 showed that complement is regularly 

 present in colostrum, and that it disappears from the milk with 

 the disappearance of the colostral characteristics. The evidence 

 above obtained by Sassenhagen and by Sassenhagen and Bauer 

 was confirmed in 1911 by Bernard Schmidt, who, using the method of 

 the above authors, found complement to be present in colostrum and 

 also in milk from a cow suffering from mastitis. He was unable to 

 obtain evidence of the presence of complement in ordinary milk with 

 the usual haemolytic system, but traces could sometimes be shown 

 to be present, when an immune serum of high potentiality was used. 



