Читать книгу The Body at Work: A Treatise on the Principles of Physiology онлайн

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The preparation sold by druggists under the name “peptone,” when injected into the veins of a dog, renders its blood incoagulable. Commercial “peptone” is a mixture of many substances. Its anticoagulation-effect is not due to the peptone which it contains. It has been supposed to be due to imperfectly digested albumin and gelatin (proteoses), but products of bacteric fermentation (toxins and ptomaines) are more probably the active bodies. Not only is the peptonized blood of a dog incoagulable, but if this blood be injected into the veins of a rabbit (an animal upon which the direct injection of peptone has no effect), it diminishes the coagulability of the rabbit’s blood. If peptonized blood be mixed in a beaker with non-peptonized blood, it prevents the coagulation of the latter. There is little doubt but that the poison, whatever it may be, acts upon the leucocytes; and there are some reasons for thinking that the poison is not contained in the “peptone,” but is secreted by the liver of the animal into which the “peptone” has been injected.