THE ACTION OF THE ENZYMES OF THE VENOM OF CROTALUS ADAMANTETJS ON THE PROTEINS OF BLOOD AND MILK’

The venom of Crotalus adamanteus, the rattlesnake of the southern United States, has a strong anti-coagulant action on blood, in vitro as well as in vivo. The work of Billing (1) which was later confirmed by Mathews (2) has shown the destruction of fibrinogen to be the principal cause of the failure of the blood to clot, although the anti-coagulant action is due in part to splitting of the cephalin molecule, rendering it incapable of trans-forming prothrombin into thrombin. The experiments reported in this paper show that the venom has a weak proteolytic action on blood proteins other than fibrinogen, but digests casein rapidly and completely. In addi-tion there is present in the venom a substance which oxidizes hemoglobin to methemoglobin. EXPERIMENTAL The Crotalus venom used in this work was obtained from the same source as that used by Billing (1) and was the sample used by Carmichael (3) and by Professor Mathews (2). The dried venom had been kept for at least six years in a tightly covered glass jar protected from direct light. Solutions were prepared by suspending the dried venom in 1 per cent NaCl and filterin