Summary
Specific horse and rabbit antisera against Vipera xanthina palestinae venom were studied by neutralization tests in mice and by the double gel diffusion technique of Ouchterlony.
Specific antivenom horse and rabbit sera had antihemorrhagic activity but no antineurotoxic activity when tested in mice.
No correlation was found between the neutralizing potency of these antisera and the number of precipitation lines obtained when tested against whole venom and electrophorctically separated venom fractions.
When rabbits immunized with whole venom were subsequently immunized with a mixture of the two electrophoretically separated neurotoxic fractions, a scrum was obtained which had antineurotoxic as well as antihemorrhagic activity and which protected mice against death even when high venom doses were used.
This enriched serum showed in Ouchterlony plates two additional precipitation lines, each line with an antigen located in one of the two neurotoxic fractions.
