408 BACTERIOLOGY. 



or extreme dilution with distilled water, its germicidal 

 activity was diminished, or completely checked; but 

 that an equal dilution could be made, if sodium chloride 

 solution (0.6-0.7 per cent.) was substituted for the dis- 

 tilled water, without the bactericidal action of the serum 

 losing any of its power. From this he concluded that the 

 active element in this phenomenon is a living albumin, 

 an essential constituent of which is sodium chloride, and 

 which, when robbed of this salt, either by dialysis or 

 dilution, becomes inert in its behavior toward bac- 

 teria. 



He found, moi'eover, that tlie activity of the serum 

 alone against bacteria was greater than when the cellular 

 elements of the blood were present. This he explains 

 by the assumption that in the serum alone the germi- 

 cidal element predominates, whereas in the blood, as 

 such, outside of the body, it is still present, but is over- 

 balanced by the nutrition offered by the disintegrated 

 cellular elements ; so that here the nutritive element is 

 most conspicuous, and the destructive activity toward 

 bacteria is less effectual. 



A closer study of the nature of this germicidal ele- 

 ment in the body of animals was made by Hankin and 

 Martin.' The former isolated from the spleen and 

 lymphatic glands a body — a globulin — which in solu- 

 tion possesses germicidal properties. 



Similar germicidal, ferment-like globulins have been 

 isolated from the blood by Ogata,'' and in their studies 

 upon tetanus Tizzoni and Cattani^ found a body 

 that was antagonistic to the poison produced by the 

 organism of this disease. 



1 British Medical Journal, May 31, 1890. 



2 Centr. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenkunde, 1891, vol. ix., p. 599. 

 ' Ibid., p. 685. 



