Venom of Heloderma Suspectum. 



105 



inhibiting action of a certain serum varies to some extent for differ- 

 ent corpuscles. Details concerning these differences will be pub- 

 lished later. 



5. Heloderma serum does not activate its own venom. 



6. Although Heloderma is naturally immune against the chief 

 toxic effects of its own venom, the venom will, when added to 

 lecithin or to an activating serum, cause hemolysis of the blood 

 corpuscles of Heloderma, in vitro. 



7. The hemolysin passes through a Berkefeld filter, dialyzes 

 very slowly, resists a temperature of 100° C. for 10 minutes, 

 and is wholly or partially destroyed by heating to ioo° C. for 30 

 minutes. It is, therefore, relatively very resistant to heat. 



8. As the preceding statements indicate, the hemolysin of 

 Heloderma suspectum differs in several respects from the hemolysins 

 of snake venoms. It may also be added that compared with such 

 powerfully hemolytic agents as the venom of cobra, the venom of 

 Heloderma is only weakly hemolytic. 



62 (318) 



The biological relations of seed proteins. 



By THOMAS B. OSBORNE. 



\_From the Connecticut Agricidtnral Experiment Station, New 



Haven, Conn.~\ 



At a recent meeting of this society, Reichert and Brown gave 

 the results of their examination of the crystal forms of hemoglo- 

 bins obtained from a large number of different species of animals. 1 



The crystallographic method was adopted because they be- 

 lieved that by this means they might succeed where the chemist 

 had failed. 



That the chemist has failed to establish differences between 

 homologous proteins which are quite as marked as those indicated 

 by the method employed by Reichert and Brown, I cannot admit. 



Without wishing in any way to detract from the importance of 

 the highly interesting results reported by Reichert and Brown, I 

 would like to call your attention to the results obtained by purely 

 chemical means in the investigations of the vegetable proteins 



1 Reichert and Brown : This journal, 1908, v, p. 66. 



