242 INFECTION AND IMMUNITY 



According to Ehrlich's views, the amboceptor or immune body alone 

 enters into direct relation with the substance used for immunization, 

 and it would seem natural therefore that the specificity of immune sera 

 depends entirely upon the increase of amboceptor or immune body. 



Von Dungern,^ indeed, was able to show that the specific amboceptor 

 was increased as immunity was acquired, without there being a cor- 

 responding enhancement of the complement. The chief difference be- 

 tween a normal and an immune serum in this respect, therefore, con- 

 sists in an enormous increase, in the latter, of the specific amboceptor. 



Multiplicity of the Complement. — ^A number of very complicated ex- 

 periments have been carried out by Ehrlich, Morgenroth,^ Sachs,^ and 

 others, which seem to show that the same serum may contain a variety 

 of complements. Similar conclusions have been drawn by Wechsberg * 

 and by Wassermann,^ who demonstrated separate complements for bac- 

 tericidal and hemolytic amboceptors in the same serum. Bordet ° and 

 his school, on the other hand, deny the multiplicity of the complement, 

 and, basing their views upon numerous experimental data, contend that 

 any given serum contains but one alexin or complement. Buchner and 

 Gruber share the views of Bordet, and, in the light of recent work, 

 especially with complement fixation (see below), it seems more likely 

 that one and only one alexin exists in any given serum. 



Anticomplements and Antiamboceptors. — Hemolytic sera, having 

 the power of destroying red blood cells, must necessarily prove in the 

 presence of sufficient complement to be powerful poisons when intro- 

 duced into animals whose corpuscles they are able to injure. By care- 

 ful and gradual dosage with such hemolytic sera, Ehrlich and Morgen- 

 roth,' as well as Bordet,' have been able to produce immunity against 

 the hemolytic action. Thus antihemolytic sera have been produced, 

 the action of which may depend either upon the presence of anticomple- 

 ment or of antiamboceptor. The presence of anticomplement in such 

 sera, it is believed, has been demonstrated by mixing inactivated 

 hemolytic serum with its respective red blood cells, then adding the 



1 V. Dungern, Munch, med. Woch., xx, 1900. 



2 Ehrlich und Morgenroth, Berl. klin. Woch., 1900. 



3 Ehrlich und Sachs, Berl. klin. Woch., 1902. 

 * Wechsberg, Zeit. f. Hyg., 1902. 

 ^Wassermann, Zeit. f. Hyg., 1901. 



« Bordet, Ann. de I'inst. Pasteur, 1900 and 1901. 



' Ehrlich und Morgenroth, Berl. klin. Woch., xxxi, 1900. 



8 Bordet, Ann. de I'inst. Pasteur, t. 14, 1900. 



