The Rate of Disappearance of Injected Horse Serum from the Blood of the Rabbit

[摘要] A series of rabbits have received intravenous injections of horse serum, usually 10 cc. Samples of blood have been taken from these rabbits at intervals from a few minutes to twelve days after the injection. The volume of horse serum present in the rabbit serum obtained from these samples has been determined by the optimal proportions method. The blood volume of each rabbit has been calculated by a formula put forward by G. Dreyer and W. Ray (1912) and the serum volume has been taken as 60 per cent of the blood volume. The results obtained by the titration of each sample together with the calculated serum volume of the rabbit provide data for the estimation of the volume of horse serum present in the blood of the rabbit at various intervals after the injection. In a considerable proportion of the experiments the results obtained during the first hour after the injection have yielded ridiculously high figures, results indeed which appeared to show that the rabbit's blood contained more horse serum than had in fact been injected. In other experiments the results obtained from the titration of the earlier samples were more reasonable. A satisfactory explanation of the more surprising results has not been found. In all experiments the rate of disappearance of horse serum from the blood of the rabbit was rapid during the first six hours after which on an average about 50 per cent of the injected horse serum had disappeared. After the sixth hour the rate of disappearance was much more gradual. Quantitative determinations of the volume of the horse serum which remained in the rabbit's blood, could be made until about the eighth day when rather less than ten per cent of the injected volume of horse serum remained.

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）