22.4 Goodpasture: Complement Fixation in Leprosy 433 



The second group was composed of sera from twenty cases 

 of the nodular and the mixed types, which had become bacte- 

 riologically and clinically negative following treatment with 

 chaulmoogra oil or its products after varying intervals. The 

 results of the tests are recorded in Table 7. 



Table 7. — Clinically aiul bacteriologically negative cases of leprosy. 



«> M 27 



It is to be observed that 100 per cent positive fixations were 

 obtained with twenty-four sera from cases just beginning 

 treatment and that eighteen of the twenty-one cases of the 

 nodular and the mixed types gave complete fixation and the three 

 remaining almost complete. The three anaesthetic cases, while 

 distinctly positive, were more variable, and they indicate, as was 

 to be expected, a weaker reaction in this group. Comparison 

 of these results with those in group 2, composed of bacteriolo- 

 gically negative nodular and mixed cases, shows a significant 

 contrast. Of twenty cases only three gave complete fixation, 

 two were negative, one strongly positive, and fourteen weakly 

 positive. The conclusion is obvious that, with a gradual improve- 

 ment in clinical evidences of the disease and a disappearance of 

 demonstrable acid-fast organisms from the lesions, there is an 

 accompanying diminution in complement-fixing substances in 

 the serum, and the decrease may reach such an extent that they 



