Rational Auto-Serum Therapy. 



61 



peutic injection, and in increasing amounts thereafter, for at least 

 two to three weeks. As a rule, antibody can be demonstrated 

 either at the onset of the serum sickness or within one or two 

 days thereafter. Thus, these two factors coexist in the blood 

 throughout the serum sickness, and even for some days after its 

 subsidence. 



The bearing of these facts upon the interpretation of serum 

 sickness is not easy to determine. In the first place, it is not prob- 

 able that the coexisting antigen and antibody correspond to one 

 another; in all likelihood they represent different fractions of the 

 complex antigen, namely horse serum. According to present 

 conceptions, the antigen is progressively neutralized by the anti- 

 body, both of the cells and of the circulating blood. Reasoning 

 by analogy, this neutralization, when it takes place within the 

 blood, produces no symptoms of any kind. When it takes place 

 within the cells, it produces a multiform group of symptoms, 

 summarized under the name of anaphylaxis. It is probable, 

 therefore, that the serum sickness represents the progressive com- 

 bination of cellular antibody with antigen. Why the symptoms 

 should cease while the antigen is still in the blood, is perhaps ex- 

 plainable upon the theory that the desensitized cells failed to 

 react further. 



39 (1217) 



Some suggestions for rational auto-serum therapy. 



By J. Bronfenbrenner and M. J. Schlesinger. 



[From the Research Laboratories of the Western Pennsylvania 

 Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pa.] 



Assuming that certain dermatoses as well as intestinal and 

 respiratory disturbances may be due to hypersensitiveness of 

 certain individuals to various proteins, a number of investigators 

 suggested that the onset of acute pathologic phenomena in such 

 cases may be due to the appearance in the circulation of specific 

 protein, causing anaphylactic reaction. On the basis of this 

 assumption various authors have successfully applied the method 

 of immunization in the treatment of such conditions. In cases 



