THE COMPOUND H^iMOLYSINS 



237 



HAEMOLYSIS OF ERYTHROCYTES FROM SHEEP BY IMMUNE-BODY FROM GOAT 

 AND ALEXIN FROM GUINEA-PIG 



It may perhaps seem strange that greater quantities of 

 alexin have not been used, but the normal serum of guinea- 

 pigs in itself contains a little haemolysin, so that it is nec- 

 essary to introduce a correction for this action ; a simple 

 subtraction was used. For greater concentrations of alexin 

 the corrections would be rather great, and as they are 

 always accompanied by some uncertainty, it seemed best 

 not to use such concentrations. 



Even in this case the formula indicates that from one 

 molecule of immune-body and one molecule of alexin one 

 molecule of haemolysin is formed. This is not always the 

 case, as will be seen from the following examples. The in- 

 dicator used was bovine red blood-corpuscles ; the immune- 

 body was prepared from the blood of a rabbit injected with 

 bovine corpuscles ; the alexin was normal serum from the 

 guinea-pig. The arrangement of the experimental series 

 was quite the same as in the instances treated above. The 

 values concern the haemolysis. 



Here we meet with the exponent f , which seems to be 

 common in this domain. The equation indicates that two 



