Report on a Staphylococcus bacteriophage. 217 



solution to a small cut or scarification in the skin produces an 

 urticarial lesion quite similar in appearance to the reactions of 

 individuals hypersensitive to pollen, dandruff and feather ex- 

 tracts. Sollman 1 has reported observations on the effect upon the 

 skin reactivity of repeatedly applying histamine to the same site. 

 In agreement with his results, we have found that the histamine 

 skin reaction is not exhaustible — on the contrary, it progressively 

 increases with each subsequent application on the same area. 

 Since histamine is non-antigenic, the non-specific skin reaction 

 produced by it can not be dependent upon an antigen-antibody 

 reaction. To us, it seems significant that this non-antigenic 

 substance produces a local reaction which is not exhaustible, 

 while the antigenic substances which we have used in the skin 

 reactions on hypersensitive patients produce a reaction which 

 may easily be completely exhausted. 



Since our observations demonstrate that it is possible to 

 abolish locally the reactivity of the skin, it seemed possible that 

 by local application of pollen or dandruff extracts to the mucous 

 membrane of the nose and throat of patients with allergic rhinitis, 

 the reactivity might here also be abolished. We have not as 

 yet carried far enough this therapeutic application of our ob- 

 servations to draw conclusions, but the results, so far as they go, 

 are very satisfactory. 



109 (1691) 



Preliminary report on a staphylococcus bacteriophage. 



By ANDRE* GRATIA. 



[From the Laboratories of the Rockefeller Institute for 

 Medical Research.] 



In 1915, two years before the discovery of d'Herelle, Twort 

 described the following phenomenon. 2 If glycerinated calf 

 vaccinia is streaked on agar slants, a certain number of the mi- 

 crococcus colonies which grow become glassy and transparent, and 

 degenerate into a granular material which cannot be subcultured 

 and which, even when diluted 1,000,000 times and filtered, gives 

 rise to the same degeneration when added to a normal culture of 

 micrococci, and so on indefinitely. 



1 Sollmann, T., and Pilcher, J. D., Jour. Pharm. and Exp. Ther., 1919, ix, 309. 



2 The Lancet, 1915, ii, 1241. 



