VENOM HAEMOLYSIS AND VENOM AGGLUTINATION 175 



various crotaline snakes, Crotalus adamanteus, C. terrificus, C. confluentus, 

 Ancistrodon contortrix, and A. piscivorus, do not contain complements and 

 are inactive without the help of second substances of certain blood serums. 

 They found that even repeated washings fail, with some samples, to prevent 

 subsequent dissolution when mixed with cobra venom. With the corpuscles 

 of dogs the removal of serum had the least influence on the retardation of 

 haemolysis. In explaining this phenomenon they assumed the presence of 

 intracellular complements in these corpuscles. In fact, Flexner and Noguchi 

 succeeded in extracting intracellular complements from the dog's corpuscles 

 by suspending them in the heated serum over night. If the heated serum is 

 separated next day from the corpuscles by centrif ugalization and then tested 

 for its haemolytic property on washed corpuscles of guinea-pig, there will be 

 more or less marked haemolysis. The controls with the heated serum of dog 

 or the saline supernatant of the washed corpuscles of dog do not cause any 

 haemolysis. When the washed corpuscles of dog are repeatedly digested in 

 the heated serum of dog (suspension and washing in several successions) 

 the susceptibility of the digested corpuscles to the haemolytic action of cobra 

 venom is seen to be far less than that of the corpuscles simply washed re- 

 peatedly in isotonic saline solution. This phenomenon is of a dual nature, 

 due sometimes to the removal of intracellular venom activators and then to 

 absorption by the cells of the anticomplementary principle 1 which has 

 developed in the heated serum of dog. 



Flexner and Noguchi then studied the nature of venom-intermediary 

 bodies, 2 especially in regard to their cytophilic and complementophilic groups. 

 The remarkable feature of venom-intermediary bodies is that they are active 

 with various kinds of foreign blood serums. Those who have worked with 

 normal and immune serum haemolysins must recognize that the complemento- 

 philic groups of the amboceptors of these serums are better fitted with the 

 native complements, hence more active in that combination. In other words, 

 as shown by Ehrlich, Morgenroth, Sachs, Neisser, and Doering, the native 

 serum contains more suitable complements for the homologous amboceptors 

 than the foreign serums. Now, why are venom amboceptors active in the 

 presence of foreign serums ? What will be the result when we furnish them 

 with their homologous complements ? What will be the relation of venom 

 amboceptors to the native and foreign serum complements? 



In this series the venoms employed were fresh and the complements were 

 obtained by allowing the given kind of corpuscles to absorb all specific serum 

 amboceptors for them by the cold method. The complements employed 

 were from the serums of Crotalus adamanteus, Ancistrodon piscivorus, and 

 Pityophis cateniferis. Each complement was tested for its activating value 

 for the haemolytic amboceptors of cobra, moccasin, copperhead, and rattle- 

 snake venoms. The corpuscles subjected to the action of the combination 

 of snake complement and venom in variable orders were those of the dog and 



i Noguchi. On the thennostabile anticomplementary constituents of the blood. Jour, of Exper. 



Medicine, 1906, VIII, 726. 

 2 Intermediary body = Ehrlich's amboceptor and Bordet's substance sensibilisatrice. 



