190 



THE VENOM OF HELODEBMA. 



Usually there was little granular detritus, which bore no relation to the 

 phagocytosis and varied from time to time in the various individuals. No 

 relation existed between the amount of granular detritus and the injection or 

 non-injection of venom. A few guinea-pig blood corpuscles were observed in 

 the peritoneal fluid in every case, but in no case was any large number found. 



In certain experiments, no pigeon corpuscles were found in the smears. 

 We have not included these experiments in our series. When venom was in- 

 jected into the peritoneal cavities of guinea-pigs, we found marked or moderate 

 phagocytosis in 15 out of 19 cases, while, when no venom was injected, we 

 found similar conditions in 19 out of 23 cases. It thus appears that the degree 

 of phagocytosis does not differ materially after the injection of venom. 



In one series of these experiments we counted the number of phagocytic 

 cells containing few pigeon corpuscles and the number containing many cor- 

 puscles. In each animal of the control as well as of the venom series 100 

 mononuclear leucocj^tes were classified in each case. 



Percentage of mononuclear leucocytes containing pigeon corpuscles. 



From this table it will be seen that the leucocytes of the animals which 

 received venom took up the pigeon's corpuscles in almost exactly the same 

 manner as did the corpuscles of the normal animals. 



Proportion of levxxcyles containing few and many bacteria per hundred leucocytes 

 not containing any bacteria. 



Amount of venom. 



10 mg. (0.6 per cent 

 solution of venom) 



7 mg. 

 6 mg. 



The influence of venom on phagocytosis was tried in vitro with the corpus- 

 cles of a dog. These corpuscles were obtained by injecting a suspension of 

 aleuronat into the pleural cavity of a dog. The dog was killed about 36 hours 

 after the injection and the pleural exudate removed. To 1 c.c. of this exudate 



