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The Action of " Peptone " on Blood and Immunity thereto. 

 By J. W. Pickering, D.Sc., and J. A. Hewitt, Ph.D., B.Sc. 



(Communicated by Prof. W. D. Halliburton, F.R.S. Received March 1, 1922.) 



(From the Department of Physiology, University of London, King's College.) 



The current view on the cause of the non-coagulability of the blood after 

 the injection of " peptone " is that the injected material stimulates the liver 

 (or the liver plus other organs) to form an excess of a substance named 

 antithrombin. The liver is considered further to form antithrombin under 

 normal conditions in amount sufficient to maintain the fluidity of the blood. 

 The statement that " peptone " has little or no anticoagulant action on shed 

 blood (except in high concentrations) is also generally accepted. Immunity 

 to the anticoagulant action of " peptone " which follows its slow injection is 

 commonly ascribed to hepatic activity. 



The experiments recorded in this paper show that these views can no 

 longer be held. 



On the supposed Formation and Secretion of Antithrombin by the Liver. 



Contjean (1), after ligature of the abdominal arterial trunks, and G-ley and 

 Pachon (2), after ligature of the lymphatics of the liver, found that injected 

 " peptone " had no anticoagulant action. Starling (3) and Delezenne (4) could 

 not confirm these observations, while Denny and Minot (5) have shown that 

 repeated electrical stimulation of the cceliac plexus or its hepatic branches 

 fails to increase the coagulability of the blood. 



The first systematic attempts to prove that the liver secreted an anti- 

 thrombic substance appear to have been made by H^don and Delezenne (6), 

 who, after establishing an Eek's fistula in a dog and, as far as possible, 

 removing the liver, failed to reduce the coagulability of the blood by the 

 intravascular injection of " peptone." These investigators concluded that 

 something secreted by the liver was the cause of this result. In each of the 

 two experiments described, some hours elapsed after the establishment of the 

 fistula and before the liver was incompletely excised, and a further hour 

 passed before the injection of " peptone." Delezenne (7) reported four similar 

 experiments (of which only one is given in detail), and here also there is a 

 considerable time-interval, in this case 5 hours, between the end of the 

 operation and the injection of the "peptone." In the 26 minutes immediately 



