IMMUNOCHEMICAL STUDIES OF THE PLANT PROTEINS 427 
their activity in the shghtest degree. Nevertheless when the whole 
seeds of wheat and some of the other cereals were heated in a crucible 
until they became a light tan color all through, they were found to 
have completely lost their activity. This was also found to be true 
.of the prepared cereal foods, which are said to be cooked at tempera- 
tures much exceeding any reached by an ordinary autoclave, such as 
"Puffed Wheat," "Puffed Rice," Kellogg's "Toasted Wheat Biscuit," 
"Shredded Wheat," etc. When concentrated aqueous extracts made 
from these were tested^ by means of the skin test upon patients who 
were strongly sensitive to the corresponding cereals in the raw form 
no reaction whatsoever was obtained. In this connection it is inter- 
esting to note that in the preparation of the most active of the in- 
dividual wheat proteins (viz., "natural proteose") considerable 
boiling is employed. From this it is seen that only very high temper- 
atures tend to diminish the anaphylactogenic activity of wheat and 
of some of the other cereals in relation to sensitization as revealed by 
the skin test. 
In cases sensitized to the pollens of the Gramineae it has been 
pretty definitely shown that idiosyncrasy to pollen of one species of 
grass is almost always accompanied by sensitization to the pollens of 
all the grass family (Goodale, '15). However, in cases allergic to the 
seed proteins of the Gramineae we see that this is not generally so, 
though sometimes it may be, especially with cases highly sensitized. 
This is entirely in keeping with Nuttall's findings in the immunological 
relationships among the animal proteins. He says: "The more power- 
ful the antiserum obtained the greater its sphere of action upon the 
bloods of related species. For instance, a weak anti-human serum pro- 
duced no reaction with the blood of the Hapalidae, whereas a powerful 
serum did produce a reaction" (Nuttall, '01). This is confirmed by 
Uhlenhuth (Uhlenhuth, '01) in experiments upon the relationships 
between the ox, goat and sheep. 
The question as to what extent subjects which are hyper-sensitive 
to the seed proteins of the Gramineae respond to the pollens of this 
family should be further investigated. It is interesting to note in 
passing that wheat pollen was entirely negative with the one case 
upon which it was tried although this case was extremely sensitive to 
the proteins of the seed. The same preparation of wheat pollen, how- 
ever, gave good reactions with some grass hay-fever cases. 
^ These tests were made by Dr. J. L. Goodale with the materials prepared by the 
author. 
