426 THE TECHNIC OF COMPLEMENT-FIXATION REACTIONS 



fixation reaction. Since these results may have been due to protein 

 amboceptors or precipitins produced simultaneously by the injection of 

 human serum contained in the extracts, the experiment was carried out 

 with extracts of bone-marrow and other organs of syphilitic monkeys 

 used to obviate this error. It was found, however, that the inactivated 

 serums of syphilitic monkeys reacted positively with antigens of either 

 human or monkey lesions, and regardless of whether the monkeys had 

 been injected with human extracts, since, after ordinary cutaneous 

 infection, their serum would show complement fixation. These early 

 reports also showed a high specificity for complement fixation, as monkey 

 immune serum did not react with extracts of normal organs or normal 

 monkey serum with extracts of syphilitic organs. 



Just fourteen days after Wassermann, Neisser, and Bruck published 

 their report, a second paper on the same subject appeared, showing the work 

 of Detre. Using aqueous extracts of luetic papules, liver, pancreas, and 

 tonsillar exudate as antigens, Detre performed the complement-fixation 

 method with the serums of six syphilitic and four normal persons, finding 

 positive reactions with two of the six luetic serums. 



In 1906 Wassermann and Plaut studied the cerebrospinal fluids of 

 41 cases of paresis, and found positive reactions in 32, 4 cases reacting 

 doubtfully and 5 negatively. In the following year Levaditi and Marie 

 and Schutze observed positive reactions with the cerebrospinal fluid of 

 tabetics, whereas Morgenroth and Stertz confirmed the previous finding 

 in paresis. Since then numerous investigators have corroborated these 

 observations, and while all the evidence tended to strengthen the belief 

 in the luetic origin of general paralysis and tabes, decisive confirmation 

 was lacking until Noguchi and Moore, in 1913, demonstrated the pres- 

 ence of the Treponema pallidum in sections of the cerebral cortex. 



In 1906 Wassermann, Neisser, Bruck, and Schucht applied the 

 complement-fixation test to a large number of cases of syphilis in Neisser's 

 clinic. Aqueous extracts of luetic liver, placenta, glands, chancres, and 

 gummata were used as antigens. Of 257 cases in all stages of the disease, 

 only 49 reacted positively. With but 19 per cent, positive reactions, 

 the method did not appear to have a promising future, although at the 

 present time, with a better understanding of the technic and of the 

 importance of quantitative factors that greatly influence the results, 

 the value of the test has been greatly enhanced. 



As it appeared that, after all, no method of diagnosis was to be 

 secured as the result of the demonstration of the syphilitic antibody in 

 the body-fluids, Neisser and Bruck determined to return to earlier 



