554 ANAPHYLAXIS 



in vitro, and to show the products of protein cleavage just after anaphy- 

 lactic shock and a corresponding decrease or total absence of the fer- 

 ments as a result of their participation in the albuminolysis. Indeed, 

 Abderhalden 1 has recently claimed that all these conditions have been 

 found to exist: (1) The serums from 12 guinea-pigs sensitized to egg- 

 albumen, when mixed with antigen, showed digestive power by both 

 optic and dialysis (biuret) methods; (2) similar serums, dialyzed alone, 

 showed digestive products in only one of six serums tested : (3) the serum 

 of six guinea-pigs taken at intervals of from five minutes, to one and one- 

 half hours after the second injection (egg-albumen) and dialyzed, gave 

 negative results after from five and fifteen minutes, whereas four taken 

 after thirty, forty-five, sixty, and ninety minutes respectively were 

 positive. In each test the serum (10 c.c.) was dialyzed against distilled 

 water for sixteen hours at 37 C., and the presence of the products of 

 .digestion determined by the biuret reaction. In this manner the final 

 evidence of the role played by the protein split products in the produc- 

 tion of acute anaphylaxis has apparently been furnished. These results, 

 however, cannot at the present time be regarded as final. Pearce and 

 Williams, 2 in a similar study with horse serum, employing the dialysis 

 technic and using ninhydrin as the indicator, were unable to demonstrate 

 the presence of the ferments after sensitization, although by using large 

 amounts of serum secured after anaphylactic shock had occurred they 

 observed positive reactions, which may have been due, in part at least, 

 to the presence of cleavage products. Zunz 3 found that the protein- 

 splitting properties of blood-serum, as tested on the sensitizing protein, 

 increased in the anaphylactic state from the fifth to the twentieth and 

 sixtieth day, and were not recognizable in blood-serum taken during 

 or soon after anaphylactic shock occurred. Pfeiffer and Mita and 

 Vaughan have observed the apparent disappearance of the ferment from 

 the blood, even though the animal is sensitized, and the last-named 

 observer explains this on the assumption that the ferment comes from 

 the fixed cells, which are stimulated to elaborate the ferment only when 

 the specific protein is brought into contact with them. 



One of the older theories of anaphylaxis regards the process as a 

 precipitin reaction. It is apparent that, in the serum of an animal 

 immunized with a soluble protein, such as a serum, a precipitin and com- 

 plement-fixing body, presumably an albuminolysin or so-called "fer- 

 ment," are produced, and exist together in the immune serum. While 



1 Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 1912, 82, 109. 2 Jour. Infect. Dis., 1914, 14, 351. 

 3 Zeitschr. f. Immunitatsf., 1913, 17, 241. 



