46 Agglutinins and Antiagf/lutinins 



haemo-agglutinins, so with the bacterio-agglutinins, they may be natural 

 or artificial, the latter are more or less markedly specific. Since the 

 discovery of the bacterio-agglutinins, the principles of whose action 

 were worked out by Gruber and Durham, and practically applied by 

 Griinbaum, as also by Widal, they have been used both for the identi- 

 fication of micro-organisms and diagnosis of disease. In the first case, 

 a particular germ, B. typhosus, Micrococctts melitmsis, B. coli, etc., has 

 been subjected to the action of graded dilutions of a specific antiserum : 

 in the second case, a well-identified germ has been exposed to the 

 action of the serum from a patient suffering from supposed typhoid 

 fever, and the like. At first it was thought that the reaction of agglu- 

 tination was strictly specific, as in the case of the precipitins, but time 

 has proved that they are but relatively specific. Their mode of action 

 has been the subject of much controversy, the literature relating thereto 

 being well-nigh inexhaustible. My object in mentioning agglutinins at 

 such length is to show that they possess many properties in common 

 with other antibodies, but more especially with those which are the 

 immediate subject of this paper, the precipitins and haemolysins. For 

 the reason that the agglutinins have been most studied in their relation 

 to bacteria I have drawn my material chiefly from this source, for there 

 can be no question but that the haemo-agglutinins and bacterio- 

 agglutinins are essentially similar. They differ as to their value in one 

 respect, the agglutinins are of great practical use in the identification of 

 bacteria, but of little use in the comparative study of blood, zoologically 

 or medico-legally. 



Agglutinins of some kind are always present in normal Llood, and it would 

 appear that they reside chiefly in the blood, there being less present in the organs. 

 Almost all observers, who have studied the question, have found agglutinins in the 

 lymphoid and blood-forming organs. Gruber (1896), observing that the poly nuclear 

 leucocytes took up injured micro-organisms, when cholera and typhoid germs were 

 injected intraperitoneally into animals, concluded that the agglutinins were formed 

 within the leucocytes, (.'ourmont (1897) tested the blood and organs of typhoid 

 cadavers, and almost invariably found the blood to contain most agglutinin. 

 Similar results were obtained by Arloing (1898) with animals infected with 

 Pneumobaeillut bovis. Fodor and Rigler (1898) found agglutinins made their 

 first appearance in the serum of guinea-pigs rendered immune to typhoid bacilli. 

 Rath (29, iv. 1899), experimenting on rabbits with the .same germs, concluded that 

 the spleen (which had been extirpated in some animals), lymph glandfe and bone- 

 marrow exert no demonstrable effect upon agglutinin-formation. van Emden (1899), 

 experimenting with B. aerogenes on rabbits, found the agglutinins chiefly in the 

 lymphoid tissue, less being present in the liver and kidneys. Deutsch (ix. 1899, 

 p. 720) found only traces of typhoid agglutinins in the liver, kidneys, suprarenals, 



