﻿THE RECENT TREND OF IMMUNITY RESEARCH. 1 



By Harry T. Marshall. 

 [From the Biological Laboratory of the Bureau of Science, Manila, P. I. 



The term immunity has come to have two meanings within recent 

 years; it retains its older significance and it is also used broadly to 

 designate the condition resulting when an organism has reacted to 

 foreign albuminous material. Researches along the more general lines 

 of immunity have led in such widely divergent directions that a gen- 

 eral review of the literature can not be attempted within the limits of 

 the time allotted to this paper. Therefore, I have selected for review 

 two subjects, which possibly are somewhat fresher than the others and 

 which are commanding considerable attention at present. We will con- 

 sider first the phenomenon known variously as complement deflection, 

 complement deviation, complement diversion or blocking of complement, 

 and second, Bail's aggressin hypothesis of infection and immunity. 



I. -DEFLECTION OF COMPLEMENT. 



Early in the course of Bordet's(3) and Ehrlich's(S) studies on the 

 mechanism of haemolysis, it was found to be possible to prevent by certain 

 fairly definite procedures the union of complement with red corpuscles 

 previously laden with immune body. The bearing of this phenomenon 

 upon the receptor theory and its value as a demonstration of the receptor 

 explanation of haemolysis was discussed, and for the sake of simplicity 

 the property possessed by a fluid of blocking the action of complement 

 was attributed to a hypothetical substance termed "anti-complement." 

 Subsequently, what appeared to be another type of the blocking occurring 

 during bacteriolysis, was described by Neisser and Wechsberg(29). 



We must remember that it never has been possible to obtain comple- 

 ment pure, and that it is defined only in part, the definition at present 

 demanding (a) that complement shall be capable of uniting with at- 

 tached amboceptors by the hypothetical haptophore group, and (&) that 

 it shall, either by its own inherent energy, or by its mere presence, bring 

 about destructive changes in the body to which it unites (red corpuscles, 

 bacterium, etc.). These changes are tentatively described as being of 



'Read at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Philippine Islands Medical Asso- 

 ciation. Manila, March 2. 1007. 



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