136 THE LYSINS. 



that used by Buchner to indicate the germicidal constituent of blood 

 serum. Bordet has also prepared anti-sensitizers and anti-alexins 

 by immunizing animals to hemolytic sera. It will be seen from this 

 that there is but little difference either in the experimental results 

 obtained or in the theoretical explanation offered by the German and 

 the French investigators. It should also be mentioned that it is 

 generally believed that the combination between the intermediary 

 body and the blood corpuscle, whether it be chemical or physical, is 

 confined, so far as the corpuscle is concerned, to the stromata, and 

 that the hemoglobin takes no part in the reaction. Miiller calls the 

 intermediary body " copula," London designates it " desmon," while 

 Metschnikoff calls the intermediary body " philooytase " and the 

 complement " cytase." 



It has long been known that the sera of certain animals may dis- 

 solve the red blood corpuscles of animals of other species. So far 

 as we know, the first recorded observation of this phenomenon was 

 made by Dumas and Prevost.^ Early experiments on the transfusion 

 of blood from one animal to another gave opportunity for repeated 

 observation of hemolytic effects. One of the first attempts to study 

 hemolysis by the methods of exact scientific examination was made 

 by Ehrlich ' in 1884, when he disproved the generally held idea that 

 cold is a causative factor in the production of hemoglobinuria. He 

 closed his paper on this subject by suggesting that cold can lead to 

 the dissolution of blood corpuscles only in specially disposed indi- 

 viduals in which the walls of the blood vessels produce certain agents 

 (ferments?) which injure the " discoplasma." In 1898 Belfanti 

 and Carbone ^ ascertained that the blood serum of an animal treated 

 with the blood of an animal of another species proved toxic when 

 injected intravenously into the animal from which the blood had 

 been originally obtained. Rabbit's blood was injected subcutaneously 

 into horses and the serum of the horse injected into the rabbit 

 caused dissolution of the corpuscles and induced death. This ob- 

 servation was probably the starting point of the numerous experi- 

 mental studies which have been made upon this subject within the 

 last two years. Almost simultaneously Bordet in France and Land- 

 steiner in Austria published the results of experiments along this 

 line. We have already referred to Bordet's work, and that of Land- 

 steiner * contributed nothing specially new. Von Dungern * injected 

 the blood of chickens and pigeons into the peritoneal cavities of 

 guinea-pigs and observed that at first the corpuscles thus injected 

 were slowly dissolved, but upon repeating the injections into the 

 same animals he found that solution occurred more promptly and 



' Aimalei de CUmie, 1821. 



< GharUe-ArmaJUn, 10. 



> Oiomal d. B. Acad, di Med. di Torino, 1898. 



*Cmliralblaitf. Balcteriologie, 25. 



* Miiiuihmer med. Woehensekrift, 1899. 



