'habu" venom and its serum therapy. 



161 



The venom heated for thirty minutes at 60° C. will effect a vivid 

 haemolysis when lecithin is added; that is, haemolysis will make itself 

 manifest in the blood corpuscles of the rabbit even with 0.0001 gram of 

 the heated venom, whereas 0.003 gram is needed if no lecithin is present. 

 The same holds true of the blood corpuscles of the horse and dog. How- 

 ever, the hseniolytic action with lecithin is less than that with serum. 

 This is another instance of the difference of the action between lecithin 

 and serum. 



Table 11. — Minimum doses of venom heated for thirty minutes at 60° C. which were 

 needed to effect hozmolym in 1 cubic centimeter of a 5 per cent suspension of blood cells. 



Animal. 



With 1 cc. of a 



0.1 per cent 



solution of 



lecithin. 



Without 

 lecithin. 





Gram. 

 0.0001 

 0. 0000003 

 0. 000005 

 0. 00001 



Gram. 

 0. 003 

 0.0003 





Cattle 





0.0001 





Kyes and Sachs observed the fact that cholesterin inhibited haemolysis, 

 especially when lecithin is present. Ishizuka made the same observations 

 with habu venom, but 1 was unable to verify this fact. 



AGGLUTINATION. 



Habu venom has an agglutinative constituent in addition to that 

 causing haemolysis. The agglutinative action of habu venom showed 

 some variations dependent upon the species of animal employed. There 

 is no parallel between hseniolytic and agglutinative action. The following 

 table shows the amounts of venom required to agglutinate 1 cubic centi- 

 meter of various species of red blood corpucles : 



Table 12. — Venom required to agglutinate 1 cubic centimeter of a 5 per cent suspension 

 of defibrinated blood cospmcles. 



Cat 



Rabbit 



Pig 



Cattle 



Guinea pig . 



Dog 



Pigeon 



Horse 



Goat 



Gram. 

 0. 000001 

 0.0005 

 0.0001 

 0.0001 

 0.0001 

 0.01 

 0.01 

 Negative. 



The agglutinin was destroyed by heating the solution for thirty 

 minutes at 70° C, whereas the haemolytic power was retained. 



