The fibrinolytic activity of hemolytic streptococci designates the capacity of cultures of the organisms to liquefy rapidly human fibrin clot (1). The lyric action is referable to the presence in the culture of an extracellular substance, characteristically elaborated by those strains of hemolytic streptococci which are derived from patients suffering with acute streptococcus infections. Invest...

The incidence of empyema (EMP) is increasing worldwide; EMP generally occurs with pleural loculation and impaired drainage is often treated with intrapleural fibrinolytic therapy (IPFT) or surgery. A number of IPFT options are used clinically with empiric dosing and variable outcomes in adults. To evaluate mechanisms governing intrapleural fibrinolysis and disease outcomes, models of Pasteurell...

1. Group A streptococci sometimes produce in broth culture an extracellular proteolytic enzyme. 2. Under suitable cultural conditions the enzyme has been demonstrated in representative cultures of most of the Griffith types. Its production by a given strain may be suppressed by serial passage through mice and the variant so produced has been found to maintain this change in character on subcult...

Stroke is a major cause of serious, long-term disability and the third leading cause of death in the United States1. According to the World Health Organization, 15 million people suffer a stroke worldwide annually. Of those, one third do not survive and another third is left with a significant neurological deficit. The majority of these events are ischemic (87%), as opposed to intracerebral (10...

The enzymes of the first sort may suitably be called the primary serum enzymes. They are usually present as precursors and require to be activated to exert their physiological effect. Examples are: (a) Lipoprotein lipase, which is activated by heparin and heparin-like substances, and which catalyzes the conversion of the triglycerides of plasma lipoproteins to free fatty acids and to diand mono...

Plasminogen (profibrinolysin) is the precursor of a proteolytic enzyme, plasmin (fibrinolysin), which is found in the euglobulin fraction of blood and which actively lyses clots in vitro and in vivo. The most satisfactory procedures for the purification of this enzyme precursor have been reported by Remmert and Cohen (1) and Christensen and Smith (2). The former investigators, by means of repea...

In 1954 Gibbon, after many years of experimental work, achieved the first successful total body perfusion in a human patient using a form of cardiopulmonary bypass. A prime aim of all workers in this field since then has been to produce safe and adequate anticoagulation of the blood during such a procedure, and to reverse it swiftly and safely at the end of the operation. Furthermore it seems a...

T HE association of henmmorrhagic disorders with circulating inmhibitors of blood clottiimg is relatively rare. A number of reports during the past 15 years,’’8 however, indicate that such problems can be clinically significant and that the physiologic uniderstandinmg of their types and modes of action is worthy of continmued investigation. No complete classification of these various inhibitors...

KERATO-CONJUNCTIVITIS sicca is the condition which follows a reduction of secretion by the main and accessory lacrimal glands, and is characterized by interpalpebral staining of the bulbar conjunctiva with rose Bengal, punctate corneal staining with punctate opacities in Bowman's zone, the presence of thick stringy mucous strands in the lower fornices, and corneal filaments, the latter being ne...