A critical study of the basis of Abderhalden's serum reaction / by W.E. Bullock.

  • Bullock, W. E.
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A critical study of the basis of Abderhalden's serum reaction / by W.E. Bullock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/28 (page 10)
    A further experiment was made to determine the influence of a previous bleeding. An animal was bled, and the serum obtained was sterilised as before and the clear watery fluid pipetted off, and after being heated placed in the ice chest. Four hours later the animal was again bled, and the same volume of serum obtained and heated in the water bath. The clear watery fluid was pipetted off, heated, cooled in the ice chest, and 5 c.c. placed in a dialysis sac and dialysed against 20 c.c. of distilled water. In the same way 5 c.c. of the watery fluid from the first bleeding was dialysed against 20 c.c. of distilled water. After 18 hours the dialysates were tested with ninhydrin. and the reaction obtained with the dialysate from the serum of the second bleeding was much deeper than the other. It may be concluded that amino-acids are washed from the tissues by the fluids which flow into the vascular system after a bleeding. These results do not preclude the possibility of a ferment action taking place in normal unheated blood serum. Indeed, it was observed that the depth of the ninhydrin reactions with fluid from 10 c.c. of serum was not more than equal to that usually obtained in an ordinary experiment with 1 c.c. of serum. In order to test for an enzyme action the following experiments were made. An animal was bled aseptically, at least 30 c.c. of blood being taken, the blood immediately centrifuged, and the clear, watery, hsemoglobin-free serum was pipetted off into a sterile test tube. Into each of half-a-dozen or more sterile dialysis sacs 2 c.c. of blood serum was placed, and the sacs dialysed at different temperatures for 18 hours against distilled water. The temperatures chosen were as nearly as possible as follows : 5° (in chest), 20°, 30°, 40°, 50°, and 60° C. It was not always possible to set the baths at exactly these temperatures, but practically the tempera¬ tures employed were round about those stated. The baths used maintain the temperatures at which they are set to within half a degree during the 18 hours of the experiment. The dialysates were tested in the usual way with ninhydrin, and the tints obtained gradually increased up to 40° C. and then diminished at the higher temperatures. The maximum was, in every experiment but one, round about 40° C. The results were compared by the method of dilu¬ tion already described,9 and the dilution numbers plotted