Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/45

Rh is the complement. The latter is not specific, since it is furnished by the blood of non-immunized animals, but it is nevertheless essential for hæmolysis. Ehrlich believes that the immune body has two side groups one which connects with the receptor of the red corpuscles and one which unites with the haptophor group of the complement, and thus renders possible the ferment-like action of the complement on the red corpuscles. Various antibacterial serums which have not been the success in treating disease they were expected to be are probably too poor in complement, though they may contain plenty of the immune body.

Quite distinct from the bactericidal, globulicidal, and antitoxic properties of blood is its agglutinating action. This is another result of infection with many kinds of bacteria or their toxins. The blood acquires the property of rendering immobile and clumping together the specific bacteria used in the infection. The test applied to the blood in cases of typhoid fever, and generally called Widal's reaction, depends on this fact.

The substances that produce this effect are called agglutinins. They also are probably proteid-like in nature, but are more resistant to heat than the lysins. Prolonged heating to over 60° C. is necessary to destroy their activity.

Lastly, we come to a question which more directly appeals to the physiologist than the preceding, because experiments in relation to immunity have furnished us with what has hitherto been lacking, a means of distinguishing human blood from the blood of other animals.

The discovery was made by Tchistovitch (1899), and his original experiment was as follows: Rabbits, dogs, goats, and guinea-pigs were inoculated with eel-serum, which is toxic: he thereby obtained from these animals an antitoxic serum. But the serum was not only antitoxic, but produced a precipitate when added to eel-serum, but not when added to the serum of any other animal. In other words, not only has a specific antitoxin been produced, but also a specific precipitin. Numerous observers have since found that this is a general rule throughout the animal kingdom, including man. If, for instance, a rabbit is treated with human blood, the serum ultimately obtained from the rabbit contains a specific precipitin for human blood; that is to say, a precipitate is formed on adding such a rabbit's serum to human blood, but not when added to the blood of any other animal. The great value of the test is its delicacy: it will detect the specific blood when it is greatly diluted, after it has been dried for weeks, or even when it is mixed with the blood of other animals.