268 THE PRINCIPLES OF IMMUNOLOGY 



move the most important source of danger, the hemagglutinins and the 

 hemolysins; undoubtedly many of the other tissue antibodies, as the 

 cytolysins, are reduced in amount. For example, they immunized a 

 goat with megatheriolysin and finely-ground liver, spleen and kidney, 

 as well as defibrinated blood, of guinea-pigs. The immune serum was 

 then repeatedly mixed with guinea-pig blood-cells until all the hemag- 

 glutinin and hemolysin had been removed. The process did not reduce 

 the titer of the special antilysin against megatheriolysin either in test 

 tube or animal experiments. Guinea-pigs were protected against 

 megatheriolysin by the use of this serum and the treatment of the 

 serum by selective absorption removed practically all the elements dan- 

 gerous for the guinea-pig. Similar experiments were performed using 

 as antigen the blood of rabbits suffering from pneumococcus 

 septicemia. It was found that absorption, by means of blood, of 

 anti-poliomyelitis serum produced no change in its protective value. 

 Experiments were also performed with the Rous chicken sarcoma, a 

 tumor caused by a filterable virus. The immune serum was prepared 

 by injecting into geese a mixture of tumor tissue and the blood of 

 moribund fowl since under these circumstances the blood contains the 

 causative agent. The immune serum was treated with fowl blood- 

 corpuscles to remove the tissue antibodies. The serum so treated, when 

 employed in proper ratio to the amount of tumor inoculated, served 

 to protect fowl against the subsequent growth and development of the 

 tumor, whereas growth proceeded regularly in the unprotected con- 

 trols. Rous makes no claim as to high protective value but that some 

 such power is developed is undoubted. 



The work quoted above is of the utmost importance in establishing 

 the important principles that must be observed in the preparation of 

 immune sera against infective agents either known or unknown when 

 used as antigens in animal tissues. The studies are recent and have not 

 as yet been widely applied. The immune sera against infections of 

 undetermined cause to be described in this section were studied before 

 the work of Rous and his associates appeared, and it is probable that 

 the methods of preparation may be considerably modified in the course 

 of time. The inclusion of acute anterior poliomyelitis in this group 

 is justified only on the ground of dissension as to whether the disease 

 is due to the globoid bodies described by Flexner and his collaborators 

 or to the pleomorphic streptococcus studied by Rosenow, Nuzum 

 and others. 



Anti-poliomyelitis Serum. That one attack of poliomyelitis pro- 

 tects against subsequent infection has been known for many years. 

 Levaditi and Landsteiner and also Flexner and Lewis in 1910 

 demonstrated that the serum of convalescents and of monkeys recov- 

 ered from the disease protects against infection. Treatment of human 

 cases of the disease was applied by Netter in 1916. This author 

 injected intrathecally the serum of recovered patients in doses of 5 to 

 13 c.c. for a period of eight days with most encouraging results. He 

 believed that the best serum is found in individuals whose acute attack 



