2 



Scientific Proceedings (35). 



The ears are normal in many individuals but not infrequently both 

 are poorly developed and often one is scarcely formed. When 

 one eye is large and the other small or absent the well formed 

 ear is usually on the side with the more perfect eye. The 

 general growth rate is retarded and spina-bifida sometimes occurs. 



Chloroton, chloroform and ether are more general in their 

 anesthetic effects, the entire embryo being unusually depressed. 

 In all of these substances, however, if the concentration be deli- 

 cately regulated the eye defects so common in alcohol and mag- 

 nesium may be produced. 



Cyclopia and other eye defects, in fish embryos at least, are 

 produced by lessening the developmental energy at certain critical 

 stages. This is readily accomplished by treating the developing 

 embryo with anesthetics. 



2 (412) 



On the variation in the resistance of human erythrocytes in 

 disease to hemolysins, with especial reference to syphilis. 



By RICHARD WEIL. 



[From the Department of Experimental Therapeutics, Cornell 

 University Medical School. ] 



The observations herein presented have to do with the altera- 

 tions in the reaction of the red blood cells to the action of certain 

 hemolytic agents. This alteration in the resisting power of the 

 red cells may be either in the direction of a diminution or an in- 

 crease in their resistance ; increased resistance, however, is appa- 

 rently a much more striking and demonstrable feature than is the 

 reverse, and seems to me, furthermore, to be of considerable impor- 

 tance from the standpoint of immunity. My observations comprise 

 a study of almost five hundred human cases, normal and diseased, 

 in which the red cells were subjected to the action of various lytic 

 agents. Among the agents so studied were various acids and 

 alkalies ; certain metallic salts, such as bichloride of mercury, 

 which possesses a well-known hemolytic power ; certain vegetable 

 hemolysins, such as saponin, digitonin and cyclamin, and certain 

 animal venoms, such as rattlesnake and cobra venom. The results 

 obtained from the study of the inorganic lysins have not been such 

 that they could be reduced to a definite correlation with any given 



