526 



A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF THE 

 PRECIPITINS.* 



By H. G. Chapman, M.D., B.S. 



(From the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Sydney.) 



Contents. 



General historical introduction ... 



Scope of inquiry 



The relations of interacting substances... 



Gravimetric estimations of the precipitate 



Determination of specific relations 



Observations on the precipitins for vegetable proteins 



The relation of deviation of complement to precipitum 



Remarks on the practical applications of precipitins... 



General historical introductioyi. 



Page. 

 526 

 529 

 531 

 .532 

 544 

 549 

 552 

 553 



The existence of specific precipitins in the blood was first 

 demonstrated in 1897 by Kraus,t vvho added cholera, plague, 

 and typhoid antisera to filtered cultures of the corresponding 

 germs. On the addition of the homologous culture-filtrate a 

 precipitate was formed, but this did not appear if the antiserum 

 was not homologous. These observations were confirmed by 

 Nicolle, I who employed cultures of Bacillus coli, B. typhi, and 

 Vibrio massuali. These investigators called the bodies present 

 in the antisera employed by them agglutinins. In 1899 Bordet§ 

 noted that rabbits, which had received several intraperitoneal 



* Published by permission of the Council of the University of Melbourne, 

 to whom it was submitted as a thesis for the David Syme Prize. 



t Wien. klin. Wochenschr. x , S.736, 1S97, quoted from Nuttall, .Tourn. 

 of Hygiene, i., p. 368, 1901. 



+ Ann. de I'lnst. Pasteur, xii., p.l61, 1898. 

 § Ann. de I'lnst. Pasteur, xiii., p.2.32, 1899. 



