71 



and often is less, the eonceutratiou in the blood being 

 in this case slightly lesser than after intravenous injection 

 of the same quantity of antigen. There is no difference 

 in the proportion between the richness in antigen of the 

 blood and the pleural exsudâtes in dogs, injected with 

 antigen in .he pk-ural cavity, and dogs, injected intrave- 

 nously. Dogs inoculated subcutaneously with blood cor- 

 puscles of goat or rat on the fore leg, do not show a 

 lesser production of antibodies than others on amputa- 

 tion during first phases of antibody-production. 



Besides, if antibodies were produced locally at the 

 site of injection of antigen in siibcutaneous cellular tis- 

 sue, it would be reasonable to expect subcutaneous in- 

 jection of antigen in many places to increase the produ- 

 ction of antibodies, which has not been found to be the 

 case. 



ZINSSER (1918) seems to be inclined to admit that 

 the formation of antibodies is not the functionof special 

 organs but that many of the cells of the body are abl ^ 

 to take part in the process; this opinion is founded prin 

 cipally upon the experiments on local inmnmisation of 

 WASSERMANN, CITRON, and ROEMER, which, as 

 has been seen, were aftewards contested. 



Of late OSHÍKAWA 0321 ) managed to graft the 

 skin of actively immunised rabbits on normal rabbits and 

 to ascertain the formation of antibodies in the latter. His 

 protocols, however indicate tl.is antibody-formation to be 

 very small, thus in two cases the titre of the agglutina- 

 ting serum of the rabbits, on which the grafting was 

 carried out, did not exceed 1 10, although in one case 

 the titre of the rabbit that furnislied the skin fragments 

 was equal to 1:640 (Immunised with B. paratyphi B); in 

 ■other experiments the serum of the rabbit, on which the 

 skin fragments were grafted, attained the titre of 1:160 

 at the end of 9 days (nimnnisation with B. proteus). 

 We find the concentration of agglutinin in the serum of 

 the rabbits on which the grafting was carried out very 

 slight to permit cathegoric conclusions; it must be remem- 

 bered that the blood forming organs of the rabbit, spe- 

 cially the bone-marrow, ate very sensitive to pathologic 

 lesions; it would be quite plausible to suppose that the 

 grafting of the skin alotie had influenced the antibody 

 contents of the blood ; the operation might have had a 

 similar influence to the injection of peptone or of an 

 irritating substance into the bone-marrow. 



2o) The antibodies ai-e produced spe- 

 cially by some of the cells of the orga- 

 nism, principally the leucocytes of the 

 blood. 



.WETCHNIKOFF (1897) had the idea that the bacte- 

 rioid substances of the serum might be produced by the 

 leucocytes. 



BORDET fl895), following this theory, ascertained 

 that the serum had a greater preventive value than the 

 plasm ^which contains few leucocytes) and concluded 

 that the leucocytes play an important part in the produ- 

 •ction of protective substances. 



ORUEBER (1S97) suggested that the polymorphonu- 



clear leucocytes form the agglutinin. This was found to 

 be a mistake by the experiments of ACHARD and BEN- 

 SAUDE, WIDAL and SICARD, PATSCH and KRAUS 

 and SCHIFFMANN. 



In the case of antitoxins, it was thought that the cells 

 specially attacked by the toxin were the the ones that 

 produced the antibody; an instance of this are the ideas 

 of WASSERMANN and TAKAKI on the formation of 

 tetanus antitoxin by the nervous cells. This was imme- 

 diately found to be erroneus by METCHNIKOFF and 

 MARIE. 



V. DUNGERN (1902) finds that the blood-cells take 

 part in the formation of precipitins. 



KRAUS and LEVADITI (1904;, dosing precipitins in 

 the organs of immunised animals, found that, of all the 

 organs studied, only the epiploon formed highly-precipi- 

 tating extracts; as the epiploon harbours an accumulatioit 

 of leucocytes, they concluded that these were chiefly res- 

 ponsible for the antibodies, 



KRAUS and SCHIFFMANN (1906) found that rab- 

 bits having undergone splenectcmy produce precipita- 

 ting sera, as -.veil as nor-nal ones; they think that pre- 

 cipitins are not formed in the organs but in the vascu- 

 lar system, since, with the exception of the epiploon, 

 no organ possesses precipitins before the serum. 



The same authors (1906) ascertained that agglutmins 

 can appear in considerable proportions in the serum 

 without existing at the same time in the extracts of or- 

 gans; when found in them, it is perceptibly less con- 

 centrated than in the blood ; the bone marrow has a 

 greater quantity of agglutinins than the spleen and lym- 

 phatic glands. 



STENSTRÒM (1911), incculafing polymorphonuclear 

 leucocytes together with the antigen (B. typhi), obser- 

 ved a decrease in the formation of agglutinins; in con- 

 sideration of this he is of the opinion that the leucocy- 

 te» either produce agglutinins or contribute indirectly to 

 their production. 



FONSECA (1912) thinks that the leucocytes play the 

 most important part in the formation of antibodies ; his 

 hypothesis is based on the fact that "organs attacked by 

 infections that confer iianiunity in a greater or lesser 

 degree, generally show, on specific counting, an increa- 

 sed number of lymphocytes". 



BACHMANN (1918-1919) showed that the leucocyte» 

 of immunised animals acquire an important specific pro- 

 perty which protects guinea pigs when injected together 

 with B. typhi in the peritoneum; the author extracted 

 from the leucocytes the products that ensure this protec- 

 tion. 



The results of LEVADITI and BANU's experiments 

 (1920) do not speak in favour of the local formation of 

 agglutinins in the subcutaneous cellular tissue; thus the 

 inflammatory process and oed(n)a, which constitute the 

 local lesion when one injects an emulsion of B. tvphi 

 with gelatin and colloidal mercury, do not influence fa- 

 vourably but on the contrary binder the formation of 

 agghitinatJng antibodies. 



TISCORNIA (1921) ascertained that leucocyte ex- 

 tracts of guinea-pigs, immunised against B. typhi, wlieu 



