436 



Dr. C. Bolton. On the- 



[Jan. 25, 



These experiments also illustrate the importance of an organ's ability to 

 take up a poison and render it inactive without being itself affected by it. 

 They likewise explain why large doses of the serum are necessary to produce 

 the stomach lesions, since a large part of this serum must be rendered inactive 

 by different organs of the body. 



Experiments in Vitro. Hoemolysin. Mixture tvith Stomach Cells of Guinea- 

 pig. — After treatment with stomach cells the serum shows as high a degree of 

 hemolytic power as it did before such treatment. It may be higher. At 

 first sight this result appears to be remarkable, namely, that a cell will not 

 remove a side chain that is thrown off in response to its injection. In other 

 words, that side chains may be thrown off which have no affinity at all for 

 the cells against which they are thrown off. 



I have obtained further evidence of the same principle in the case of the 

 gastrotoxin formed against guinea-pig's stomach cells by injection of the 

 rabbit's stomach cells into the rabbit. The rabbit's stomach cells will not 

 remove this gastrotoxin from the serum, and therefore, whether one supposes 

 that the cytophilic affinity of the amboceptor for the rabbit's stomach cell is 

 or is not saturated by an anti-immune body, the fact remains that the rabbit's 

 stomach cell has no affinity for the side chain which is active against the 

 guinea-pig's cell, and which has been thrown off in response to injection of 

 rabbit's stomach cell. Similarly rabbit's stomach cells will not remove the 

 gastrotoxin from guinea-pig-rabbit gastrotoxic serum (see Plate 17, fig. 6). 



It seems to me most likely that when a cell is absorbed side chains having an 

 especial affinity for that cell, and which are used in destroying it, are set free 

 and that other side chains having less affinity for it are set free in diminished 

 amount, aud also side chains having no affinity whatever for it are set free in 

 smallest amount. In other words, the absorbing cell throws off most of the 

 varieties of side chains or chemical affinities of which it is possessed, the 

 number of each being directly determined by the amount of stimulation given 

 to the particular chemical affinity involved. 



The fact that the stomach cells will not absorb the hsemolysin is important 

 from another point of view. I shall show later that the action of a ha^molysin, 

 whatever its origin, is directed especially against the stomach, and also that 

 lesions due to its action may be limited to the stomach. Now if other organs 

 of the body have the power of destroying the hemolysin without themselves 

 being affected, whilst the stomach cells will not absorb it, the result naturally 

 follows that the hemolysin will be free to act as it may in the capillaries of 

 the stomach, and therefore will produce lesions. 



Mixture vnth Liver Cells, Intestine Cells, and Red-Blood Corpuscles. — Each of 

 these three varieties of cells has the power of removing the hsemolysin from 



