Complement Content of Milk. 



That under certain conditions amboceptors, as immune bodies 

 of the third order, may pass into the milk, is proved by Bertarelli's 

 experiment on a sheep treated with the red blood corpuscles of a 

 chicken. The specific hemolytic amboceptor which resulted could 

 be demonstrated in the milk. Therefore although amboceptors 

 may pass into the milk and although normal milk contains non- 

 specific hemolytic amboceptors in small amounts, nevertheless the 

 passing of hemolysins into the milk is very uncertain. According 

 to Kraus, Kopf and others hemolysins do not occur in milk ; like- 

 wise bacteriolysins are absent, or their presence is very doubtful, 

 according to the investigations of Bab. Of course one of the 

 hemolytic factors, the amboceptors, might be present in the blood, 

 while the complement under the special conditions present in milk, 

 may be inactive. 



While Pfaundler and Moro state that hemolytic and bacterici- 

 dal complement may be found in cows' milk, Bauer and Kopf, and 

 Bauer and Sassenhagen, on the other hand showed that in normal, 

 ripe milk complements are not present; that is, even by special 

 examinations only traces could be established. 



On the contrary in samples of colostral milk, and milk from 

 udders affected with mastitis, both amboceptor and complement 

 may be demonstrated. 



The complement content of milk drops with the duration of 

 time which has elapsed between parturition and the taking of the 

 sample, until from the sixth to the twenty-seventh day after calving 

 the amount of the complement disappears. 



This observation may possibly be of great practical value in 

 ascertaining whether or not a cow is fresh in milk. Mastitis milk, 

 which bears a close relation to colostral milk, showed a relative 

 richness in amboceptor and in complement, thereby making it pos- 

 sible to establish the affection of the udder by the demonstration 

 of the complement. Of course it is not certain that the comple- 

 ment occurs early enough to enable this method to be utilized more 

 readily than for instance the Trommsdorff test, the catalase test, 

 or microscopic examination of the centrifuged sediment, and 

 others. 



Sassenhagen found in one case that the presence of mastitis 

 could be determined by complement-fixation 18 days before the 

 first clinical appearance of the disease, even when the quantity 

 of sediment, after the Trommsdorff reaction was insufficient to 

 afford a basis for a diagnosis of mastitis. 



Bauer further proved that complement inhibiting substances 

 are present in milk ; Hausmann and Pascucci traced this inhibition 

 of hemolysis to the presence of lecithin or cholesterin in the milk. 



According to Kopf the complement passes from the colostral 

 milk into the blood of the calf ; it may be demonstrated in the serum 

 of the calf from the third to the fourth day, before which time the 

 blood cells of guinea pigs were not dissolved. 



