HOST RESPONSE TO ANTIGENIC ACTION 463 



Kramar and Gyiire (1929), 754 Injecting intradermally suspensions 

 of pneumococci of the different serological types, the authors 

 noted positive skin reactions in only 18 per cent of pneumonia pa- 

 tients but in 50 per cent of healthy individuals. In the case of the 

 pneumonia patients reactivity of the skin appeared in eight to 

 sixty days after resolution of the pneumonic process. The reaction 

 was, in general, type-specific for Types I, II, and III, as judged 

 by the serological relation of the antigen employed to the organ- 

 ism isolated from the sputum of the subject tested. 



Contradictory results were described by Tillett and Francis 

 (1929), 1408 who found that pneumococcal polysaccharides, when 

 injected intradermally into patients convalescent from lobar pneu- 

 monia, were capable of eliciting a definite response. A patient's 

 ability to react was apparently associated with both recovery from 

 infection and the presence of type-specific antibodies in the cir- 

 culating blood. In addition to the action of the polysaccharide, 

 the so-called nucleoprotein of Pneumococcu?, when similarly in- 

 jected, caused a local cutaneous reaction in subjects during con- 

 valescence from pneumonia. The local lesion resulting from the in- 

 jection of protein was tuberculin-like in character, and differed 

 from that evoked by type-specific polysaccharides in gross ap- 

 pearance, time of development, and duration. Although the pres- 

 ence of precipitins reactive with pneumococcal protein could be 

 demonstrated in individuals acutely ill with or convalescing from 

 pneumococcal pneumonia, the concentration of antipneumococcic 

 antibodies in the blood serum appeared to be unrelated to the pa- 

 tients' capacity to react to intradermal injection of the protein. 



In a second communication, Francis and Tillett 478 amplified 

 their observations on the appearance of cutaneous reactions dur- 

 ing lobar pneumonia. Immediate wheal formation and erythema 

 followed the intradermal injection at the time of crisis of homolo- 

 gous polysaccharide in 100 per cent of Type I patients, in 55.8 

 per cent of those infected with Type II Pneumococcus, and in 44 

 per cent of those infected with pneumococci of Type III. A de- 



