IO2 LECTURES ON IMMUNITY 



The agreement is very satisfactory. 



Similar experiments were done with sodium hydrate and 

 tetanolysin. They led to similar results. If different 

 quantities of ammonia are allowed to act upon a unit 

 amount of blood corpuscles during a given time, it fol- 

 lows from the considerations given above that the haemo- 

 lysed quantity increases more rapidly than in proportion 

 to the amount of ammonia. If we consider the 

 quantities a and 2 a, and let the first act during the 



time -, the second during the time /, the action of the two 

 will be equal. If thereafter the quantity a be allowed to 

 act during the time -, the velocity of reaction will be much 



greater during this interval than in the first period. There- 

 fore the quantity haemolysed in the time / by the quantity 

 2 a is more than double that haemolysed in the same time 

 by the quantity a (provided that the total haemolysis is not 

 near completeness, and that we observe in the first stages 

 of the process). It is often found that the quantity haemo- 

 lysed is roughly proportional to the square of the concen- 

 tration of the poison, if this does not act very rapidly as is 

 the case with ammonia and tetanolysis. This rule, which 

 may be of use for many calculations, is illustrated by the 

 following examples (a is the concentration of the poison, 

 b the degree of haemolysis in per cent, c = V# : a). 



In other cases, generally of rapidly acting haemolytic 

 agents, the rule does not hold, but the value of c sinks 

 rapidly when the degree of haemolysis falls below 10 per 

 cent. Such are the strongly dissociated bases, caustic 

 potash, soda, and lithium, and even solanin. 



