132 FUNGUS DISEASES OF MAN AND ANIMALS 



who obtained precipitating serums of relatively high titer and 

 specificity with yeasts by inoculating, not the cells, but proteins 

 liberated from them by autolysis. 



Agglutinins. Most attempts to carry out agglutination reactions 

 with fungi have been unsuccessful. This is due in part to the diffi- 

 culty of obtaining stable suspensions. Generally spores have been 

 used although some workers have used suspensions of ground-up 

 mycelium. 



Moore and Davis reported that agglutinins were produced in 

 sporotrichosis and considered the agglutination reaction useful in 

 diagnosis and in demonstrating the close relationship between dif- 

 ferent strains of Sporotrichum Schenckii. 



Cummins and Sanders^* could demonstrate no agglutinins for 

 Coccidioides immitis in experimentally infected animals. Similarly 

 Nicaud^^ found no agglutinins for spores of Aspergillus jumigatus 

 in the sera of human cases of aspergillosis, and Matsumoto ^^ did not 

 obtain any agglutination of spores of A. amstelodami in the sera 

 of intensively immunized rabbits. 



On the other hand, Widal '° and others found that the sera of 

 sporotrichosis cases would agglutinate the spores of S. Schenckii in 

 rather high dilutions, 1:300 to 1:400 on the average, and this ob- 

 servation has been confirmed by numerous later authors. However, 

 the same Sporotrichum spores are also agglutinated in rather high 

 dilutions by the sera of thrush cases and cases of actinomycosis, 

 according to Widal and his coworkers. This observation, however, 

 was not confirmed by Fineman -' in the cases of thrush studied with 

 American strains of Sporotrichum. Widal and his coworkers found 

 that the sera of thrush cases would agglutinate Sporotrichum spores 

 at a higher titer than they would suspensions of the thrush parasite. 

 Fineman could obtain agglutinins only in a very low titer for Candida 

 albicans in immunized rabbits. According to Epstein ^o this organism 

 agglutinates spontaneously too readily to be used for agglutination 

 reactions. Blakeslee and Gortner ^' ^ obtained rather strong agglu- 

 tinating sera for the spores of Mucor, with some cross reactions. 

 It should be pointed out that the spores of Sporotrichum and of the 

 ■ Mucors have thinner walls than do many mold spores, and they form 

 suspensions fairly readily. 



Benham demonstrated the usefulness of the agglutination and re- 

 ciprocal absorption of agglutinins tests in determining relationships 

 between species of Candida. Most investigators have found it pos- 

 sible to produce serums of good antigen titer with these yeast-like 

 fungi. ]\Iartin, discussing the application of immunological prin- 



