A CONSIDERATION OF SOME OF BAIL’S RECENT VIEWS IN 
CONNECTION WITH THE STUDY OF IMMUNITY AND 
A COMPARISON OF THE VALUE OF PROTEC- 
TIVE INOCULATION WITH AGGRES- 
SIN WITH THAT OF VACCINA- 
gO BU ad eg OSB) 
By Ricuarp P. Srrona. 
(From the Biological Laboratory, Bureau of Science.) 
One of the more important studies on the subject of immunity appear- 
ing during the past year, and one which has attracted a large amount of 
attention, has been that of Bail,? published in several recent numbers 
of the Archiv. fiir Hygiene. In the introduction to his first paper, after 
discussing the question of the relationship between bacteriolysis and 
immunity, he suggests that either the immunity which enters into the 
animal body in the process of obtaining a bacteriolytic serum represents 
a false immunity—i. e., not a true resistance against the disease itself, 
but only one against its cause in the particular form employed—or that 
in reality it represents a true immunity, the special nature of which, 
however, arises in something else than bacteriolysis, which is merely an 
accompanying phenomenon. He further calls attention to the fact that 
during almost eight years, experiments have been carried on with the 
expectation of being able to explain the non-infective power of an animal 
through the processes of bacteriolysis, but he points out that apparently 
the conclusion should be reached that the germ-killing properties of the 
body fluids are primarily without value in interpreting the actual proc- 
esses of immunity. In support of his views attention is called to the 
fact that the rabbit, whose blood serum usually possesses ‘a powerfully 
antagonistic action against the anthrax bacillus, is susceptible to the 
disease anthrax, while the fowl, whose blood shows the opposite prop- 
erties, is insusceptible. He also alludes to the fact that while im- 
mune bodies against this affection could usually be demonstrated in 
the blood serum of other animals, the proof of a regular relationship 
*Read March 3, 1906, before the third annual meeting of the Philippine Islands 
Medical Association. 
*Oskar Bail: Archiv. fiir Hygiene (1905), 52, 212; 53, 275; 53, 302: Also 
Deutsche Medizin. Wehnschr. (1905), 31, 1471, 1788. 
50! 
