io8 
Scientific Proceedings (43). 
facts have an important bearing on any theory of acid causation 
of edema. 
Our experiments do not permit us to deny that acids may be 
influential factors in the causation of edematous processes. Our 
results emphasize the fact, however, that the acids which may 
be produced in, or that are carried into, tissues tend to unite 
there with non-colloidal basic radicals and with dissolved colloids 
before combining with suspended colloids. The chemical means 
and excretory processes by which living protoplasm maintains a 
state of reaction-constancy cannot easily be overcome. In 
Fischer's published experiments on the bloating effects of acids, 
large excesses of free acid were present in all but a few cases. Would 
Fischer contend that edematous tissues contain free acid? 
We feel that acids are not the only causes of colloidal water 
absorption in edema. Results obtained by Berg and Gies 1 several 
years ago indicate that enzymes facilitate any such influence 
that acids, whether free or combined, may exert; and vice versa. 
Fischer himself alludes, "in passing" (p. 109), to a result in 
harmony with that view. The italicized portion of the foregoing 
quotation from Fischer's book is broad enough to include enzyme 
influences and all other contributory factors. Experiments along 
these lines are still in progress. 
65 (590) 
The relation of the toxic dose of horse serum to the protective 
dose of atropin in anaphylaxis. 
By HOWARD T. KARSNER and JOHN B. NUTT. 
[From the McManes Laboratory of Pathology, University of Penn- 
sylvania.] 
This study was prompted by the publications of Auer and 
Lewis, 2 and of Auer, 3 which definitely demonstrated the prophy- 
lactic action of atropin sulphat in the asphyxia of immediate 
anaphylaxis. The results of these writers have been confirmed 
repeatedly. 
x Berg and Gies, Journal of Biological Chemistry, 1907, ii, pp. 508 and 522. 
2 Auer and Lewis, Jour. A. M. A., 1909, viii, 458; Jour. Exp. Med., 1910, xii, 
153; ibid., p. 165. 
3 Auer, Amer. Jour, of Physiology, 1910, xxvi, 439. 
