192 HEMOLYSIS AND SERUM CYTOTOXINS 



of normally hemolytic serum seem to be no different from those 

 in immune serum, and amboceptors of one animal can combine 

 with complement furnished by the serum of an entirely different 

 animal. It is the amboceptor alone that gives the specific 

 nature to the reaction, and, as is the case with all other immuni- 

 zations, it is very difficult to secure antibodies by immunizing an 

 animal with blood from another animal of its own species, iso- 

 hemolysins ; and impossible to secure antibodies for its own 

 blood, autohemolysins. 



Although Bordet and other French observers have claimed 

 that the union between amboceptor and corpuscle is physical 

 and not chemical, the evidence seems to point the other way. 1 

 Probably the union is with the stroma rather than with the 

 hemoglobin, and the result of the union is to render the stroma 

 permeable to the hemoglobin, or to separate the bonds that 

 unite the hemoglobin to the stroma. Mathes 2 contends that 

 red corpuscles cannot be dissolved by hemolytic serum or by 

 pancreatic juice until after they have been killed ; as heated 

 serum does not kill them, this is presumably done by the 

 complement. Corpuscles that have been killed can then be 

 dissolved in their own serum. Levene 3 tried to produce hemo- 

 lytic serums by immunizing with different constituents of cor- 

 puscles, using (1) pure crystalline hemoglobin ; (2)proteids of 

 the stroma soluble in salt solutions ; (3) an extract with alcohol- 

 ether; and (4) an extract in 1.5 per cent, sodium bicarbonate. 

 Only the last gave positive results, and the serum was almost 

 devoid of agglutinative properties. Injection with corpuscles 

 that had been digested with trypsin gave about the same results 

 as alkaline extracts ; corpuscles digested by pepsin gave a much 

 weaker serum ; in neither was agglutination obtained. Accord- 

 ing to Bang and Forssmann 4 ethereal extracts of red corpuscles 

 give rise to production of hemolysins on immunization, and this 

 "lysinogen" substance can be precipitated with acetone, is in- 

 soluble in alcohol, is not destroyed by boiling, and gives rise to 

 no agglutinin. Ford and Halsey 5 obtained serum with both 

 lytic and agglutinative powers by injecting either the stroma or 

 the laked blood free of stroma ; results with pure hemoglobin 



1 Bang and Forssmann (Hofmeister's Beitr., 1906 (8), 238) suggest that the 

 amboceptor merely renders the corpuscle permeable for the complement, per- 

 haps through action on the lipoid membrane ; the complement then acts directly 

 upon some constituent of the corpuscle, without the amboceptor acting as a 

 combining substance in any way. 



2 Munch, med. Woch., 1902 (49), 8. 



3 Jour. Med. Research, 1904 (12), 191. 



4 Hofmeister's Beitr., 1906 (8), 238. 



5 Jour. Med. Research, 1904 (11), 403. 



