538 



Dr. R. D. Keith. Relationship between [Feb. 15, 



exact interpretation to be put on Savtchenko's work, and particularly as to 

 the exact significance of the term " fixateur " as used by him, it is necessary 

 to briefly consider his position, especially as Barratt (11) has put a different 

 interpretation on it from Dean. 



Savtchenko assumed that the laws regulating the action of cytotoxins 

 were entirely analogous to those regulating the action of immunising 

 substances on microbes, and considered that experiments on phagocytosis 

 might be permissibly conducted with animal cells and adopted red blood 

 cells as being easy to work with. 



This opinion would indicate that Savtchenko considered that the action of 

 haemolysis was the analogue of that of immunising substances on microbes, 

 since a cytotonic action with reference to red blood cells would mean 

 haemolysis. This is also indicated further on in his work when he says that 

 as has been pointed out by Bordet, when the red blood cells of an animal A 

 are injected into an animal B, the serum of the latter becomes toxic for the 

 red blood cells of the former, and that he himself has established a complete 

 analogy between the action of the serum on the red blood cells and that of 

 the immune specific serum on the microbe as well in the animal body as 

 " in vitro." 



Further he says,* " Dans le serum specifique se trouve une substance ou 

 fixateur (d'apres la terminologie de Metchnikoff) qui se fixe sur les globules 

 rouges correspondants — ou bien sur les microbes — et par son action prepare 

 ces derniers a leur dissolution par les alexines (cytases) qu'on trouve dans 

 chaque serum. Le fixateur ne se detruit pas a 55° C. a 60° C. Ehrlich et 

 Morgenroth ont rnontre que le fixateur a une affinite specifique pour les 

 globules rouges correspondants, et qu'une fois fixe sur eux, il ne s'en detache 

 pas dans les lavages ulterieurs, ainsi que dans la centrifugation dans l'eau 

 physiologique. Si Ton soumet les globules rouges ainsi traites a Taction du 

 serum normal contenant des alexines, ils se dissolvent." 



With regard to Metchnikoff s definition of the fixateur which Savtchenko 

 accepts, one may state what Metchnikoff (12) himself has given in his latest 

 work on the subject. 



On p. 355 he says, " Um in diesen bedeutungsvollen Ergebnissen das sicher 

 Festgestellte und das Hypothetische von einander zu halten, haben wir 

 vorgeschlagen das Alexin oder Komplement unter dem ISTamen Cytase 

 (d. h. zellenlosendes Enzym), die sensibilisierende Substanz dagegen unter 

 dem Namen Fixator zu bezeichnen." He also states (p. 357) that 

 Savtchenko was the first to show that red blood cells which are laden with 

 the specific Jb:ateur are extraordinarily easily phagocytosed. 



* Loc. cit., p. 111. 



