4 SECTION I. HYGIENIC MICROBIOLOGY AND PARASITOLOGY. 



Vaughan, Gumming, and McGlumphy 32 ) that soluble antigenic sub- 

 stances like egg white or serum apparently disappear within a few 

 hours from the circulating blood. This is shown by the impossi- 

 bility of producing, in the one set of experiments, antibodies in 

 another animal that is liberally transfused with such blood, and, 

 on the other hand, by the failure to produce anaphylaxis in guinea 

 pigs to the substance originally injected (egg white, Vaughan and 

 collaborators). In apparent contradiction are the observations of 

 several observers on the relation of leucocytosis to precipitin forma- 

 tion. Thus both Cantacuzene 83 and Swerew 34 have noted a marked 

 hyperleucocytosis preceded by an absolute decrease in polymor- 

 phonuclears, which may reasonably be related to the liberation of 

 'precipitins. This observation fits in neatly with that of Hiss and 

 Zinsser, 35 who obtained nonspecific bacterial precipitins from leuco- 

 cytic extracts, and that of Stenstrom. 8 who found that hemologous 

 leucocytes injected with the precipitinogen increases precipitin out- 

 put. Kraus and Schiffmann 24 emphatically regard the blood as the 

 source of precipitins, whereas Cantacuzene. in spite of his evidence 

 in favor of the leucocytes, is inclined to trace precipitin formation 

 to the spleen. 



The liver is by no means to be overlooked in discussing precipitin 

 formation. The work of Manwaring, 36 of Nolf, 37 and of Balizot, 88 

 on anaph} r lactic shock, would seem to point to the liver as the seat 

 of action, and so, indirectly, owing to the relation that exists between 

 anaphylaxis and precipitins, as a possible location of the latter 

 substances. 



It is evident from this brief survey of the literature that no general 

 statement can be made on the locus of antibody formation in gen- 

 eral. It may well be that each of the antibody types is produced 

 in a different place or places. But even when we consider the pos- 

 sible seat of origin of any particular class of antibodies, we are 

 struck by the apparent confusion in the acquired data. In the case 

 of any of them we may still say that the antibody may be formed 

 either in the blood stream or in the fixed tissues. There seems 

 greatest agreement on the point that antibodies are formed either 

 by the leucocytes or the leucocyte- forming organs. And yet a good 

 deal of recent work points with increasing emphasis to the liver, an 

 organ which, in view of its other functions, might logically likewise 

 serve to produce antibodies. 



Our own studies on antibody formation have been actively in 

 progress for over a year. We regard them hitherto as largely pre- 

 liminary and they have led rather toward establishing certain meth- 

 ods of attack and the evolution of working hypotheses of possible 

 heuristic value than to any conclusion on the main subject at issue. 



