IMMUNITY REACTIONS 211 



The Meiostagmin Reaction. 



M. ASCOLI and G. IZAR found that substances which lower surface 

 tension of the solution are formed in the reaction between antigens 

 and immune bodies. He determined this with TRAUBE'S stalag- 

 mometer by counting the drops which formed from a measured 

 quantity of fluid. 1 When, for instance, he mixed an extract of 

 typhus bacilli with normal serum and with the serum of typhoid 

 patients, 10 c.c. gave 58 drops in the former instance and 61 drops in 

 the latter. M. ASCOLI considers it to be a general reaction and has 

 employed it in the serum diagnosis of various conditions (syphilis, 

 tuberculosis, anchylostomiasis and echinococcus infection). It has 

 not been generally introduced as a means clinical diagnosis of infec- 

 tious disease since the technic is so precise that the differences are 

 within the limit of error, but it has been more frequently employed 

 in the detection of malignant growths. Two dilutions of the serum 

 are prepared, one with water and the other with an equal quantity 

 of tumor extract (recently ASCOLI employed ricinoleic acid or linoleic 

 acid, etc.). If the number of drops are larger in the latter mixture 

 than in the former, there is a presumption that the serum is from 

 a cancer patient. 2 



1 Meiostagmin reaction = reaction of smaller sized drops. 



2 [E. P. BERNSTEIN and IRVING E. SIMONS, after critically reviewing the litera- 

 ture and their personal experience, have discarded the Meiostagmin reaction as 

 useless clinically. Amer. Jour. Med. Sci., vol. 142, p. 862, et seq. Tr.] 



