284 IMMUNOLOGY 



It is obvious that this method of treatment has a limited appli- 

 cation and that its efficiency is probably due to the antibody con- 

 tent which Gay has shown is only one factor in the body's de- 

 fense against streptococcus infections. The shift in the Schilling 

 count may not be so significant as it would appear since there are 

 many factors to be considered which affect the peripheral leuco- 

 cyte count. 



Blood Banks. — The practice of citrating blood and storing it at 

 4° to 6° C. is quite common. Kolmer (1940) reviews the liter- 

 ature in connection with his own experimental studies and con- 

 cludes that blood is ''better preserved by the addition of glucose" 

 as suggested by Rons and Turner (1916) or of dextrin as sug- 

 gested by Maizels and Whittaker (1940).* 



Pneumococcus Pneumonia. — Pneumonia, both lobar and bron- 

 cho- due to the pneumococcus, is one of the principal causes of 

 death in the United States. Until 1929 it was generally accepted 

 that there are three specific types of pneumococci and an hetero- 

 geneous group called by Dochez and Gillespie (1913) Type IV. 

 Olmstead (1917) discovered that the latter type is composed of 

 a number of small groups rather than single strains. Recently 

 Cooper et al. (1929, 1932), working in Park's laboratory, have 

 divided Group IV into 29 new types. Additional types have been 

 described by Kauffmann, M0rch and Schmith (1940) and by 

 Walter, Guevin, Beattie, Cotler and Bucca (1941). Their results 

 bring the total number of different pneumococcal types including 

 subtypes to 55. A subtype is one that shows cross reaction with 

 immune serum for another type. Park (1933) said that it is pos- 

 sible to identify fifty or sixty types but only seven or eight are 

 prevalent and therefore important. 



Types in Lobar and Bronchopneumonia. — Sutliff and Finland 

 (1933) report six types as being responsible for 84.1 per cent of 

 their cases of pneumococcus lobar pneumonia. They list them 

 relative to their order of frequency as Types I, II, III, VIII, V, 

 and VII. They report also the order of frequency of the ten 

 types, e.g., Ill,' VIII, XVIII, X, V, VII, XX, II, XI, and XIV 

 which were responsible for 81.1 per cent of their cases of pneumo- 

 coccus bronchopneumonia. Their findings are quite similar to 

 those of Avery et al. (1917) who pointed out that Types I and II 



♦See also Studies on Preserved Human Blood, J. A. M. A. 114: 850, 858, 859, 

 1940. 



