124 



Immunity 



Bordet* and Tchistowitchf showed that the phenomenon was 

 of wide occurrence and had a broad significance, for they discovered 

 that when the serum of one animal was injected into another ani- 

 mal of different kind, some reaction took place in the injected ani- 

 mal, which caused a precipitate to form whenever the serums of 

 the two animals were subsequently brought together in a test-tube. 

 The same was found true of milk. When an animal was injected 

 with the milk of a different kind of animal, its serum acquired the 

 property of causing a precipitate to form when 

 its serum and filtered milk were mixed together 

 in a test-tube. The substance or factor inducing 

 the precipitation was called "precipitin" or 

 "coagulin." Myers,t Jacoby,§ Nolf,|| and others 

 showed that the faculty of provoking specific 

 precipitins was common to many albuminous 

 bodies — albumen, globulin, albumose, peptone, 

 ricin, etc. Kraus in his original communication 

 dwelt upon the specific nature of the precipita- 

 tion, and was corroborated by Fish,** 

 Wassermann,tt Morgenroth, and others, by 

 whom it has been shown that the reaction is 

 sufficiently accurate to make possible the 

 differentiation of human and goat's milk. The 

 most important practical application of the 

 specific character of the precipitins, however, 

 came through Uhlenhuth|t and Wassermann,§§ 

 who made use of it for the differentiation of 

 bloods for forensic purposes. 



Uhlenhuth gave rabbits intraperitoneal in- 

 jections of lo cc. of defibrinated blood at 

 intervals of from six to eight days and found 

 the blood-serum strongly precipitant after the 

 fifth. He used such serum for testing the re- 

 action with the bloods of oxen, horses, donkeys, 

 pigs, sheep, dogs, cats,i deer, hares, guinea-pigs, rats, mice, rabbits, 

 chickens, geese, turkeys, pigeons, and men. 



The method of making the test is important, as carelessness of 

 detail will interfere with the accuracy of the result. The blood to be 

 tested is diluted about i :ioo, or until it has a feeble red color, with 



* "Ann. de I'Inst. Pasteur," 1899, p. 173. 



t "Ann. de I'Inst. Pasteur," 1899, p. 406. 



I " 9^°'T^1'''- ^- '^^^^■, " etc., 1900, Bd.xxxiii, and "TheLancet," 1900, 11, p. 98. 



^ "Archiv fiir exper. Path. u. Pharmak.," 1900. 



II "Ann. de I'Inst. Pasteur," 1900, p. 297. 

 ** "Courier of Medicine," St. Louis, Feb., 1900. 

 II "Verhandl. d. Kong. f. innere Med.," 1900, 501, Wiesbaden. 

 11 Deutsclie med. Woch.," 1900 and igoi. 



§§"SamniI. klin. Vortr. von Volkman," Leipzig, Verlag von Breitkopf and 

 Hartel, 1902. 



21. — Poly- 

 ceptor (Eiirlich and 

 Marshall) such as 

 can be conceived to 

 occur in hemolysis 

 and bacteriolysis 

 where various com- 

 plements are en- 

 gaged, a, Receptor 

 of bacterial cell; b, 

 cytophil group of 

 the amboceptor; c, 

 dominating comple-' 

 ment; d, subordinate 

 complement; a, 0, 

 complementophil 

 groups of the ambo- 

 ceptor, a for the 

 dominating, for 

 the subordinate 

 complements. 



