| Abstrakt: |
Macht and Lubin have called attention first in these Proceedings and again in a more extensive publication appearing elsewhere to the remarkable phytopharmacological properties of menotoxin, the toxin present in the blood and other secretions of women at the beginning of menstruation. It was pointed out that while this toxin was extremely poisonous for plant protoplasm it was comparatively very little poisonous for animal tissues, although differences in toxicity between normal and menstrual blood for animals have been found. This difference between the phytopharmacological and zoöpharmacological actions of menotoxin were shown to hold for microscopic organisms as well. Thus menstrual serum was quite toxic for bacteria such as B. coliwhich are generally classed with plants on the one hand, and the same serum was but slightly toxic for trypano-somes which are more closely related to animals, such as the flagellates, on the other. In this connection it was interesting to inquire into the toxicity of menotoxin for spermatozoa.Fresh and actively motile spermatozoa were obtained from men and the effect of various toxins was studied on the same in hanging drop preparations. It was found that menstrual serum was not more toxic for spermatazoa than normal serum. The authors made further studies on the effect of various chemicals which seem to be closely related to menotoxin. As has been pointed out by Macht and Lubin, menotoxin exhibits chemical and pharmacological properties resembling oxycholesterol on the one hand, and the bile acids on the other hand. Experiments were made with emulsions of oxycholesterol in normal serum, with solutions of cholic acid and other closely related chemicals. It was found that neither oxycholesterol nor cholic acids had any marked toxic effect on spermatazoa. The results obtained with these various substances agreed with the findings in the case of menstrual serum and further substantiate the close relationship between the chemical nature of nienotoxin on the one hand and oxycholesterol and cholic acid on the other hand. |
