HAEMOSTATIC ACTIVITY OF CRUDE CEPHALIN COMPONENTS.

Abstract

An extensive literature is available on the role of lipids on blood clotting in vitro, but attempts to investigate the influence of lipids upon haemostasis itself, that is the arrest of bleeding, have been few. The only papers found in literature were those by Hirschfelder (1915), Hanzlik (1918a, b) and Hanzlik and Weidenthal (1919), where it was shown that crude cephalin when applied to the wound has some effect on the control of skin bleeding.Through the use of dog hind‐leg preparation, adapted for studies on haemostasis in vivo, Cruz and Oliveira (1958) have provided experimental evidence to support the view that coagulation is not necessary for the arrest of bleeding in skin cuts, showing that normal bleeding times were obtained during perfusion with a noncoagulable blood sample (citrated arterial blood). In such preparations only arterial blood stops bleeding, whereas venous blood has no effect (Cruz, Oliveira and Magalhaes, 1958). We have used the inability of venous blood to arrest bleeding to demonstrate the haemostatic properties of various substances (Cruz, Oliveira and Magalhaes, 1959; Cruz, Magalhaes and Oliveira, 19600), which, when added to venous blood, converted it into haemostatic blood.It has been shown that crude cephalin was the active component of several organ extracts able to convert the non‐haemostatic venous blood into haemostatic blood (Cruz et al, 1959). As a first attempt to identify the active substance of crude cephalin, Folch's fractionation method (Folch, 1942) was used, and the haemostatic capacity of fractions I, HI and V tested. The results, showing that most of the activity of crude cephalin is to be found in fraction V (Fy), are presented in this paper.