The action of “peptone” and of nucleic acids on the coagulability of the blood

Abstract

In a previous communication to this Society, tbe present authors showed that the rapid intravascular injection of “peptone” into cats, deprived of hepatic activity, inhibited coagulation of the blood. It was also shown that when precautions are taken to preserve the surface conditions of the blood of the cat, pronounced retardation of clotting can be obtained in vitro by the addition of “peptone” in quantities no greater than are required to produce a like effect in vivo (Pickering and Hewitt, 1). Subsequently, Nolf (2) observed that the anti-coagulant action of “peptone” on the blood of the domestic fowl, with the liver extirpated, is actually greater than in the intact animal. Experimenting with the blood of dogs, Doyon (3) found that nucleic acid, prepared by Neumann’s method (4) from the thymus and from the mesenteric ganglia of the ox, is anticoagulant in vivo and in vitro, the former reaction being ascribed to the supposed secretion, by the liver, of an antithrombic nucleoprotein.