Scientific Proceedings (60). 



The work of a great many different authors has shown that 

 when anemia is produced by hemolytic poisons the resistance of 

 the blood cells is increased, and it is generally accepted that in the 

 pernicious and hemolytic types of human anemia the resistance of 

 the red cells is increased whereas in secondary anemias it is di- 

 minished. 



From our experiments we conclude that the red cells of in- 

 dividual sheep show marked variations to laking either by immune 

 serum or by hypotonic salt solution and that resistances by laking 

 by these two agencies are always parallel to each other. These 

 differences are not due to acute hemorrhage. Whether they are 

 due to differences in race or to differences in hygienic conditions 

 (prolonged confinement, immunization with typhoid bacilli) we 

 cannot yet state. During a short period of observation (about a 

 month) in the case of two of the sheep, the cells of each animal were 

 practically constant. There is a slight diminution in the tonicity 

 of the blood serum immediately after an acute hemorrhage: this is 

 possibly due to the fact that the body can more rapidly obtain 

 water than it can salt and other serum constituents. The apparent 

 tonicity of the serum has no relation to the tonicity of the red 

 cells of the individual. 



101 (918) 



The influence of decerebration on the convulsant action of caffein 



in frogs. 



By T. S. Githens. 



[From the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of the Rocke- 

 feller Institute for Medical Research.} 



It is well-known that destruction of the brain causes increase 

 of reflex action in frogs, especially when they are kept in the cold, 

 and last year I reported that the effect of morphin, which causes 

 in frogs tetanus indistinguishable from that of strychnin, was very 

 markedly increased by decerebration, the effective dose in such 

 frogs being about one tenth of that in normal frogs. 



I wish to report now on the result of a study of the effect of 

 decerebration upon the convulsant action of caffein. Caffein salts 



