124 UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN STUDIES 







trichum beurmanni from Gougerot of Paris, a sporotrichun 

 isolated by K. F. Meyer from a horse in the United States, an< 

 a strain isolated in 1909 by the \vriter from typical sporotri 

 chosis in a man from North Dakota. The sera of the variou; 

 rabbits were tested with the homologous organisms and als( 

 with other strains. It was found that agglutination appearec 

 quite uniformily in the dilutions of serum varying fron: 

 about 1/320 to 1/640. In most instances a slightly highei 

 agglutination appeared in the homologous sera but this was 

 not always the case. The several strains tested could not be 

 differentiated by these interagglutination tests in animals. 



Similar tests were made with serum from a human case in 

 which agglutination with the homologous organism occurred 

 at 1/160. Here again the original Sp. schenckii and Sp. 

 beurmanni were agglutinated at approximately the same dilu- 

 tion, namely, 1/160. The controls were negative. 



Wilder and McCullough 29 studied the serum from a case of 

 sporotrichosis of the eye. Tests for agglutinins and opsonins 

 in the serum of the patient against several strains of sporo- 

 tricha, including the infecting strain, the original Schenek- 

 Hektoen strain, a French strain, ah equine strain from Meyer, 

 and two other American strains from typical cases, revealed 

 no specific differences in the antibody content of the serum. 



The reaction of complement fixation is positive in cases of 

 sporotrichosis but it seems less reliable than that of agglutina- 

 tion. The studies of Widal and Abrami and other French 

 workers have shown that the results are very definite but that 

 an infection with many other mycoses (actinomycosis, hemis- 

 porosis, discomycosis, etc.) will also give a positive test. A 

 priori, then, one would not expect this test to be useful in 

 differentiating strains of sporotricha. J. J. Moore 30 in our 

 laboratory has made such studies, finding a definite fixation 

 in human serum from a case of sporotrichosis using the homol- 

 ogous organism. He obtained similar results when antigens 

 made from the various other strains, including Sporotrichum 

 schenckii, Sporotrichum beurmanni and an equine strain, were 



29 J. A. M. A., 62, p. 1156, 1914. 



30 Jour. Inf. Dis., 23, p. 252, 1918. 



