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METHOD OF COMPLEMENT FIXATION 



The non-binding dose is 0.16. The amount, however, to be employed 

 in the complement fixation test must be o.c8 c.cm. of organ extract. 



If on mixing 0.06 T. and 0.08 extract, complement fixation still appears, 

 then this summation of antigen can be disregarded and an antigen antibody 

 reaction must be considered. For, even granting that 0.08 of extract does 

 for its greater part, e.g., 0.06 at the most, consists of tuberculin, then this 

 amount + 0.06 of the tuberculin in the antigen only makes 0.12 of tuber- 

 culin, a quantity not sufficient to fix the complement. De facto, comple- 

 ment fixation does occur when the above test is carried out with proper 

 dosage, so that most probably it is occasioned by the biological antigen 

 antibody reaction. As a general rule for all complement fixation tests, the 

 dose of each ingredient employed should never be more than 1/2 of its maximum 

 quantity that does not of itself bind complement. 



A second exception, taken by Weil and Nakayama as well as 

 Other by Morgenroth and Rabinowitsch relates to the activity of the 

 Exceptions, complement when it combines with tuberculin and anti- 

 tuberculin. 



They claim that by this union the complement's lytic func- 

 tion is entirely lost. Morgenroth and Rabinowitsch even go so far as to 

 deny the existence of anti tuberculin in the blood of tuberculous individuals. 

 The author also undertook a minute study of this question and came to 

 the following definite conclusion. There are some tuberculous individuals 

 who spontaneously develop antituberculin amboceptors, a fact to be ex- 

 pected because it has for a long time been known that on and off tuberculin 

 can be liberated in the organism of tuberculous individuals. As a natural 

 consequence antibodies will be formed, and most probably by those tissue 

 cells in the neighborhood of the liberation of the tuberculin, i.e., the focus 

 of infection. 



Before proceeding, however, to the author's conception of the tuberculin 

 theory it is necessary to review Ehrlich's principles of immunity upon which 

 the ideas of antibodies and their specificity are based. 



Ehrlich's idea of the biological structure of cells is that they 



Ehrlich's consist of two parts, a central functionating radicle ("Leist- 



Side Chain ungskern") upon which depends the specialized activities of 



Theory, the cells, as for example, a glandular or nerve cell, and a 



multiplicity of side chains or receptors (a term borrowed from 



