THE ACTION OF HZEMOLYSINS ON NORMAL AND PATHOLOGICAL HUMAN ERYTHROCYTES

¹ South-Eastern Emergency Blood Supply Depot, Maidstone

In stored blood, susceptibility to lysis by bile salts and lysolipin is increased, while to saponin it is decreased. This suggests that some substance with certain of the properties of lysolipin, bile salts, and soaps has appeared during storage, but it is thought unlikely that this substance is responsible for the natural hæmolysis occurring during storage, for the altered response is not correlated with natural hæmolysis.

In the microcytic anæmias, lysis by bile salts, lysolipin, and saponin is probably normal. In acholuric family jaundice resistance to these lipins is somewhat decreased, while in the microcytic anaemias it is definitely decreased. There is no evidence that this decrease of resistance is due to the pre-adsorbtion of a hæmolytic substance in vivo.

If experiments on hæmolysis are to have any meaning, the titres of lysins used ought to be referred to the total surface area of the cell suspensions.