Resorption of albuminoid fluids 115 



Schlitze and Paul Miiller concluded that by heating tlie serums they 

 had entirely deprived them of cytase elements they did not take into 

 account the possibility of the cytases being transformed, under the 

 influence of heat, into other bodies unable to produce haemolysis, but 

 quite capable of provoking the formation of anticytases. Ehrlich and 

 Morgenroth give to these new bodies, derived from cytases under 

 the influence of temperatures between 55° — 60° C, the name of 

 comjylementoids ; and these complementoids appear in the experiments 

 of Schlitze and Miiller to have caused the production of antitoxins— 

 anticytases. 



In all the investigations just summarised the anticytases have been 

 obtained by the injection into animals of various blood serums, fresh or 

 heated. Wassermann^ has discovered another method of arriving at 

 the same result. He injected into guinea-pigs the leucocytes of 

 rabbits, carefully deprived of all traces of serum. After some time 

 the blood serum of guinea-pigs thus treated became weakly but 

 distinctly anticytatic. From this experiment Wassermann draws the 

 conclusion that, as has been often affirmed by several observers, 

 the leucocytes really contain cytases. 



How do the anticytases act upon the cytases ? On this point all [123] 

 observers who have studied this question have but one answer, the 

 action of tlie anticytases is direct. Bordet thinks that the two sub- 

 stances combine so intimately that they cannot be again separated by 

 heat. We know that the cytases are very sensitive to heat and that 

 their haemolytic property is destroyed at 55° C. The anticytases, on 

 the other hand, as already noted, are much more resistant to the action 

 of heat. Bordet has prepared mixtures of haemolytic cytase serum 

 and of antihaemolytic serum, neutral mixtures, that is to say, inactive 

 for red corpuscles or with a very feeble action upon red corpuscles 

 that have been sensibilised by the specific fixative. These mixtures no 

 longer exhibit antihaemotoxic properties or they exercise this power 

 in a very feeble degree. If in these mixtures the cytases remain 

 uncombined alongside the anticytases, it is to be expected that heat- 

 ing them to 55° C. will restore the antihaemotoxic function of the 

 anticytases ; the cytases being destroyed at 55° C. there will remain 

 in the mixtures only active anticytase. The experiments made on 

 this point have demonstrated that the heating of these mixtures does 

 not restore the antihaemotoxic action, that is to say, the anticytase is 

 definitely combined with the cytase. 



1 Ztschr.f. Hyg., Leipzig, 1901, Bd. xxxvii, S. 190. 



8—2 



