586 COLLECTED STUDIES IN IMMUNITY. 



employed in the forensic demonstration of the origin of blood-stains. 

 The same thing, of course, was possible in the case of the albumin 

 amboceptors. 



This fact has recently been taken advantage of by M. Neisser and 

 Sachs, 1 who have devised a procedure by which, by deflecting hsemo- 

 lytic complements by means of albuminous bodies loaded with am- 

 boceptor, they diagnosticate human blood, etc. The study of im- 

 munity thus furnishes two biological methods for deciding a point of 

 vital importance in forensic medicine, namely, the origin of blood- 

 stains. Considering the extreme importance of tests of this kind, I 

 am convinced that hereafter it will be well to use this method in 

 addition to the well-tried Uhlenhuth-Wassermann reaction. 



This brief resume, I believe, covers the chief points which have 

 recently come up for discussion, and it is indeed gratifying to me that 

 all the vital questions have been decided in favor of my views. I 

 have gladly applied the results obtained in experimental investiga- 

 tions to an extension of my views, for it is obvious, considering the 

 rudimentary character of a new science, that any successful prosecu- 

 tion of the work will also extend the theoretical conceptions. If then, 

 in spite of this, all the facts brought to light fit naturally into the 

 views formulated by me, I regard this as additional evidence that 

 these views are not so much a theory as a necessary abstraction of the 

 observed facts, an abstraction which is necessary not only in order to 

 obtain a clear and harmonious conception of all the various observa- 

 tions, but also to furnish a scientific basis for a further successful 

 development of the subject. 



1 Berlin, klin. Wochenschr. No. 44, 1905, and No. 3, 1906. 



