BIOCHEMICAL REACTIONS 161 



article: "Measured amounts of serum are placed in 

 several tubes, and to one is added boiled placenta, to 

 others boiled kidney, or heart, or whatever the control 

 may be, and with one tube containing serum alone, and 

 others the tissues named above, all are placed in the 

 thermostat at 37 '^ C. for 24 hours. At the end of this 

 time the contents of each tube are poured into a sepa- 

 rate beaker, diluted with 20 c.c. of water, boiled with 

 the addition of acetic acid, and filtered. To 10 c.c. of 

 each filtrate the ninhydrin test is applied." 



Jamison and Cole {New Orleans Med, Jour., Ixvi, 

 3, p. 188) using Pearce and Williams' technic have 

 confirmed its reliability as compared with the diffusion 

 method. 



Sero-enzyme Test for Syphilis 



Baeslack {Jour, Amer, Med. Assn., Mar. 28, 

 1914, p. 1002 and Aug. 15, 1914, p. 599) has applied 

 the principles of Abderhalden's technic to the diag- 

 nosis of syphilis in a considerable number of cases. 

 The tissues made use of as antigen in the reaction are 

 the pearly white gummata resulting from the inocula- 

 tion of the testicles of rabbits with syphilitic tissue. 

 This tissue is prepared in the manner prescribed by 

 Abderhalden for the placental tissue in the pregnancy 

 test, and the remainder of the technic is the same as 

 that of the Abderhalden dialysis method, using nin- 

 hydrin as indicator. Baeslack's results correspond 

 11 



