EMERY'S TECHNIC 179 



of amboceptor from the serum of the sheep cell immunized rabbit, as 

 to cause haemolysis with a syphilitic serum. Simon recommends 

 treating the sera to be tested with sheep cells in order to fix these 

 native amboceptors. Centrif ugalizing, the sheep cells with the attached 

 amboceptors are thrown down, leaving the clear supernatant serum 

 free of these amboceptors. 



There seem to be certain sera when with a clinical history of syphilis we obtain a 

 positive Wassermann with unheated serum and a negative one with inactivated 

 serum. In order to obtain information with the same serum heated and unheated 

 I would recommend, when it is inconvenient to carry out the original Wassermann 

 technic, to employ the Noguchi technic with inactivated serum and the Emery 

 technic with fresh unheated serum. In any case when serum cannot be tested within 

 twenty-four hours it should be inactivated, as unheated serum tends to become 

 anticomplementary. 



EMERY'S TECHNIC FOR THE WASSERMANN TEST 



Owing to technical difficulties with the method of making and 

 employing the antigen and amboceptor features of the original Emery 

 test, I have retained the principle of the test but substituted the 

 reagents prepared in exact accordance with Noguchi's directions. 



Briefly stated, the principle of Emery's test consists in the employment of fresh 

 human serum for supplying complement and the primary incubating of the haemolytic 

 system (human red cells and rabbit serum immune to human red cells) at the same 

 time as the incubation of the antigen and serum but in separate tubes. Then in the 

 second period of incubation to add these "sensitized" cells to the serum antigen 

 combination. 



In Noguchi's method all reagents are incubated together. in the 

 first period with the exception of the amboceptor paper (dried serum 

 of rabbit immune to h iman red cells), which is not added until the 

 period of incubation for complement binding is completed and the 

 second incubation commenced. Time is saved in the Emery technic, 

 inasmuch as the red cells are already sensitized by the haemolytic 

 amboceptor when added to the tubes, and haemolysis shows itself 

 almost immediately in tubes where the complement has not been 

 absorbed by the antigen through syphilitic antibodies. 



Noguchi has called attention to the fact that protein constituents of certain 

 aqueous or alcoholic extracts may have the power to fix complement through certain 

 intermediaries existing in fresh serum which, however, does not obtain for inacti- 

 vated sera (sera heated to s6C. for fifteen minutes). 



