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Scientific Proceedings (125) 



This has been demonstrated to be true of egg protein by Lust, 

 Hyashi, Schloss and Worthen and others and for the proteins 

 of cow's milk by Modigliani and Benini and Schloss and Worthen. 

 These investigations were based on the demonstration of the 

 protein in the blood or urine by means of precipitin tests or 

 anaphylactic tests on guinea pigs. Such passage of unaltered 

 or partially digested protein is especially apt to occur in mal- 

 nourished infants or in those suffering from diarrhea. 



The investigations cited all show the possibility of foreign 

 protein entering the blood stream through the intestinal wall. 

 If this were a frequent occurrence it would seem of interest to 

 determine whether the entrance of foreign protein under these 

 conditions provoked the production of antibodies. This ques- 

 tion is probably of more than academic importance. Moro found 

 precipitines to cow's milk in the blood of 2 out of 24 atrophic 

 infants examined post mortem. Bauer demonstrated precipitines 

 in the blood of 4 atrophic infants. 



During the past two years we have conducted investigations 

 on infants with nutritional disorders to determine the frequency 

 with which antibodies to milk occur in the blood. 



Precipitin tests for antibody were done as follows : To 1 c.c. 

 of milk dilutions of 1-100, 1-500 and 1-1000 was added 0.1 c.c. 

 of the serum to be tested. The tests were read after incubation 

 for 1 hour at 37.5° C, the tubes were then kept on ice for 24 

 hours and read a second time. 



In the earlier tests controls of normal human serum and nor- 

 mal rabbit or sheep serum were used. These tests were uniform- 

 ly negative and were omitted in the later tests. Positive con- 

 trols were made by using anti-milk rabbit serum. Breast milk 

 in similar dilutions to the cow's milk was used as a control in 

 some of the tests. Control tests, using the serum from the 

 patient investigated diluted with normal saline, were used 

 throughout. 



The tests for anaphylactic antibody were conducted as fol- 

 lows: Three c.c. of citrated blood were injected into the peri- 

 toneal cavity of a 200 to 300 gram guinea pig. Twenty-four 

 hours later 0.5 to 0.75 c.c of fat free milk were injected intra- 

 venously. 



