228 MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY. 



Bacteria or other cells which are united to the same immune body or sensibili' 

 satrice become disintegrated upon the addition of diverse complements. 



In any one cytolytic serum the complement for bacteria and for red cells is one 

 and the same. The fixation of the immune body takes place by the stroma of 

 the red cells, for red cells washed of all their contents so that only the empty cap- 

 sules are left fix the immune body just as well as unwashed red cells. 



Antilysin combines with both immune body and complement. 



Since antilysin neutralizes the complement, it is both antihemolytic and anti 

 bacteriolytic, because the complement for both of these is the same. 



Pfeiffer was the first to describe the bacteriolytic action of animal fluids on bac- 

 teria, and the reaction is called Pfeiffer's phenomenon. Pfeiffer's view of the 

 nature of lysin differs from those of Ehrhch and of Bordet. He holds that lysin 

 is not composed of two bodies, but that it is one body which is readily changed 

 into an active and passive condition. This view does not seem to have found as 

 much favor as that of Ehrlich and that of Bordet. 



But among those who have accepted more or less completely 

 the Ehrlich conception of the nature of the bodies concerned 

 in bacteriolysis, there is difference of opinion as to the mode 

 of action of the complement. Ehrlich himself says in regard 

 to the matter "that one will not go amiss if he assumes with 

 Pfeiffer that the process of bacteriolysis is analogous to diges- 

 tion, and attributes to the addiment (complement) the char- 

 acter of a digestive ferment." Gruber,* on the contrary, con- 

 tends that the complement does not act like a ferment, and 

 that it is erroneous to draw any analogy between the comple- 

 ment and an enzyme, since the complement is entirely used up 

 in bacteriolysis, whereas in the process of fermentation, as is 

 well known, the ferment is not used up, but may be recovered 

 after the action is ended and used for the fermentation of 

 other material. 



But whatever the exact mode of action may be, it is evident 



from what has just been said that both the Ehrlich and the 



Bordet schools attribute bacteriolytic action proper in normal 



serum to a substance easily changed by comparatively low 



temperatures, and called, respectively, complement and alexin 



*Gruber. KoUe and Wassermann's Handbuch der pathogenen Mikroor- 

 ganismen. 



