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Scientific Proceedings (32). 



jected under the skin of patients suffering from carcinoma or other 

 disease. In patients with mahgnant disease, a decided local 

 reaction was observed. The technique employed was a very 

 simple one. Under aseptic precautions, blood was aspirated 

 from the median basilic vein of a normal individual (preferably 

 a child), every possible precaution being taken that the indi- 

 vidual was healthy and free from hereditary or acquired disease. 

 The blood was defibrinated, and the cells washed four times in 

 normal saline solution, care being taken that the washings and 

 centrifuging was thoroughly done. A 20 per cent, emulsion of 

 the red cells in normal saline solution was made and kept in the 

 ice-box for 24-48 hours before it was used. Five minims of this 

 24-48 hour old suspension of washed red blood cells were sub- 

 cutaneously injected into the anterior surface of the forearm of the 

 patient. In the patients in whom a " reaction " was obtained, the 

 following changes were noted in the skin at the site of the injection. 

 Six to eighteen hours after the injection, the affected area was 

 slightly raised and slightly tender, it had a more or less well defined 

 margin, it measured from two to four centimeters and it was of a 

 somewhat dusky red color. The changes in the skin reached their 

 maximum within one or two hours, and the red area then began 

 to fade, rapidly or slowly. Eight to twenty four hours after the 

 injection, the skin lesion had either entirely disappeared, or more 

 often, a brownish, bluish or lemon-yellow discoloration remained, 

 which persisted for a number of days. 



In the patients who did not show this reaction, there was either 

 nothing to be seen at the site of the injection excepting the needle 

 puncture, or a brownish discoloration of the skin, or a bluish dis- 

 coloration, as is often seen after a hypodermic injection. 



My investigations of this cutaneous lesion are very incomplete. 

 I have given thirty four injections to twenty patients with known 

 carcinoma, and every one of the cases had a positive reaction. 

 In most of the patients several injections were given of different 

 blood cells. With succeeding injections, the reaction was either 

 less marked or failed to appear. Of four patients with known 

 sarcoma, three gave a positive reaction. Injections were given to 

 over one hundred normal individuals or to those suffering from 

 diseases other than sarcoma or carcinoma. These included a 



