266 INFECTION AND IMMUNITY. 



When micro-organisms gain entrance to the 

 body they are killed and dissolved in considerable 

 masses. As a result of the solution, certain bac- 

 terial constituents reach the circulation, and 

 among them are molecules or receptors which pos- 

 sess haptophores capable of uniting with a par- 

 ticular type of amboceptor, the latter being an in- 

 tegral part of some tissue cells. This union hav- 

 ing taken place, an affinity for circulating com- 

 plement may be created as in the test-tube experi- 

 ments. We have thus the possibility of stimula- 

 tion of the cell by the bacterial constituent itself 

 as a toxic or unusual food substance, or the toxic 

 action may be caused by products of disintegra- 

 tion of the bacterial substance, the disintegration 

 having been accomplished by the digestive action 

 of the complement which was taken up by the am- 

 boceptor. The effect is that of an unusual stimu- 

 lation, in response to which the cell, if not fatally 

 injured, reproduces many amboceptors correspond- 

 ing to the type which was occupied or injured. 

 As in the formation of other antibodies, the new- 

 formed amboceptors reach the general fluids of the 

 body. 

 specificity of Concerning the specificity of serum-hemolysins 



Bactericidal i j/u T, I 



Amboceptors and serum-bacteriolysms for their homologous 

 'mints" cells, we, of course, refer to the specificity of the 

 whole amboceptor-complement complex. It is nec- 

 essary to throw the responsibility on both sub- 

 stances, because of the variations which exist 

 among complements as well as among ambocep- 

 tors. Inasmuch, however, as the heat-resistant 

 body alone is increased during immunization or 

 infection, the greater part of the specificity would 



