upon the second serumadministration with symptoms of intoxication 
some time after that injection produces a serum that is exceedingly 
poor in haemolytic alexine.” By the side of this I have proved that 
the serum of hypersensitive animals in not a single combination with 
horse-serum gives a precipitate, nor is it able to fix complement. * 
A remarkable incongruity therefore, and by which the anaphylactic 
state is distinguished from the phase of immunity, at which prae- 
cipitines are formed, and at which in vivo as well as in the test- 
tube alexine is fixed. I point out that here I came in conflict with 
Nicolle and Abt 1 ), who had found that the serum of sensitized 
guinea-pigs does fix complement with horse-serum in vitro. For 
Friedberger, who considers anaphylaxis as a peculiar form of the 
immunity for proteins, at which the praecipitines only for a trifling 
part have passed into circulation, but principally have remained 
fixed (sessile) to the cells, the fixation of complement was a welcome 
phenomenon. He took for granted (evidently without any further 
control) that the communication of Nicolle and Abt was correct, 
whilst, on the other hand, he could confirm by his own investigation 
my observation about the loss of alexine during the anaphylactic 
shock. ■) Yet even here such quantitative differences came to light 
that at first sight my observations seemed to show a shade of in¬ 
correctness. I had said for example, that the maximum of complement- 
loss is reached after about half an hour, whereas Friedberger found 
this to be the case already within five minutes. Therefore I am 
compelled to enter into this somewhat more closely. 
Friedberger has evidently not asked himself where the cause 
may lie of our diverging results, quantitative as they may only be. 
He speaks only in passing of “Differenzen in der angewandten 
Anaphylaxie-technik. ,, But here lies the cardo quaestionis, and what 
I presumed already, appeared to me on closer investigation to be 
reality. I had namely administered to my animals the toxic serum- 
injection in not too great a dose in their abdomen; the reaction is 
then less violent and has a slower course, so that — through the 
investigation of blood-samples taken from the animals consecutively 
at different times of the anaphylactic shock — I could in general 
fix the course of the complement-curve. Friedberger, however, injected, 
his hypersensitive animals intravenously : the reaction then goes so 
quickly and is so violent, that the guinea-pigs usually die within 
few minutes. And at the same time also the complement-loss has 
soon reached its maximum. Now in WassermAnn’s laboratory I have 
i) Ann. de l’lnst. Pasteur 1908. 
