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The experiments of Duran-Reynals (1, 2) demonstrating that testicle extract, and, to a less degree, the extracts of certain other organs (kidney, skin, etc.) are endowed with the property of enhancing the lesions produced by vaccine virus and staphylococcus have been confirmed by McClean 0), Maitland (4) and others. Hoffman (5) and Pijoan (6) extended these results to many filtrable viruses and bacteria. The action of testicle extract is not dearly understood, although, since the first experiments of Duran-Reynals, it has appeared that the action is on the tissues of the animals and not directly on the vaccine virus itself. Duran-Reynals (1) has demonstrated that vaccine virus, when injected intravenously, localizes very readily in areas of skin previously injected with testicle extract. McClean (3) and Hoffman and Duran-Reynals (7) have shown that testicle extract increases the spread of inert substances (India ink) injected intradermally, probably by increasing the permeability of tissues and ceils.In the present paper some experiments are reported which were undertaken to test the view that the action of the effective factor in testicle extract is upon the host tissue. Since it would have been difficult to demonstrate directly any modification of the permeability of tissues into which the extract had been injected, an indirect method, allowing it to act on cells in vitro, has been chosen. Red blood cells were used for these experiments, since it is possible to observe very easily a modification of the permeability of their membranes by means of the so called "fragility test." Some preliminary tests were made by mixing rat testicle extract and rabbit red blood cells, washing the latter and then adding them to graded solutions of sodium chloride. It was found that the fragility of the cells was considerably increased. Later a series of experiments was carried out, in which the action of testicle extracts on red blood cells of various species was tested.

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