NORTHEY 



of the infection (Moragues and Pinkerton, 1944; Jungeblut et al. , 

 1942). In numerous studies on the influence of environmental temper- 

 ature on both human and experimental infection, conflicting results 

 have been reported, even when the same infectious agents and the 

 same animals were used. In the majority of these studies, no attempt 

 was made to measure the anittoody response quantitatively of animals 

 under "cold stress", A notable exception to this has been work of 

 Campbell, Trapani and Sutherland (Campbell, 19 51;Sutherland etal., 

 19 58) whose studies on the sera of cold exposed rats and rabbits has 

 provided valuable information concerning passive antibody decay, 

 changes in the serum proteins, and alterations in the antibody level 

 and blood chemistry. I attempted to measere qualitatively and quanti- 

 tatively the immune response of rabbits exposed to lowered environ- 

 mental temperatures.To achieve a highdegree of sensitivity, antigen- 

 antibody systems of known high reactivitywere used, and the results 

 of the immunization of both "normal" and "cold exposed" rabbits 

 studied. Through the use of strongly reacting protein antigen- anti- 

 body systems, a qualitative measure of the antibody response was 

 made throughtheuse of such techniques as Ouchterlony gel diffusion, 

 immune- electrophoresis, starch gel electrophoresis, and paper 

 electrophoresis. Quantitative determinations included titrations of 

 antibody levels by the conventional "ring" precipitin technique, and 

 by the much more precise method of micro-quantitative precipitin 

 analysis. An attempt was made to obtain quantitative results of gel 

 diffusion studies by measuring the intensity and homogeneity of the 

 antigen- antibody reaction in terms of the amount of precipitate 

 formed. The objective was to deter mine (1) the sensitivity of the im- 

 mune mechanism of animals during cold exposure versus the "nor- 

 mal", that is, the multiplicity of the antibody response, and (2) the 

 "tjTDe" of antibodyproduced during cold exposure, that is, the affinity 

 or avidity for its specific antigen of the antibody produced by the 

 "cold exposed" versus "normal" animal. The specific objective of the 

 qualitative studies was to determinethenumber of multiple antigen- 

 antibody systems which can be observed in each of the groups when 

 identical immunization schedules are followed. Immunization with 

 the same multiple antigen system will provide information regarding 

 the sensitivity and selectivity of the immune mechanism under con- 

 ditions of the cold exposure. By studying both the qualitative and 

 quantitative aspects of the problem, one should be able to draw cer- 

 tain conclusions regarding the response of the "cold exposed" ani- 



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