EXCEPTIONS TO COMPLEMENT FIXATION. 



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

 the complement fixation test must be 0.08 c.c. 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, contain tuberculin, then this 

 amount + 0.06 of the tuberculin in the antigen only makes 0.12 of tuberculin, 

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

 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 i /2 of its maximum complement 

 non-binding quantity. 



This principle was not definitely established at the time of Wassermann and Bruck's 

 first studies so that experimental proof for the existence of antituberculin amboceptors 

 in tuberculous organs has not been corroborated. 



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 function is entirely 

 lost. Morgenroth and Rabinowitsch even go so far as to deny the existence 

 of antituberculin 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 expected 

 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 conse- 

 quence 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. 



