Abstract
In the experiments related above I have shown that the serum of a pregnant individual, placed in contact with placenta at 0° temperature and separated from the placenta by subsequent centrifugation, is capable of giving up dialyzable substances if placed in the incubator. Assuming that the cells of placenta were centrifuged down, the only explanation for the appearance of amino acids and polypeptids in such a serum was that the serum acquired the ability to digest itself. The fact that the addition of fresh placenta to such serum does not increase the degree of dialysis on the one hand, whereas on the other addition of serum globulin increases it very markedly—points toward the correctness of this assumption.
Some experiments conducted in my laboratory at present with placenta as well as with bacterial substrata will prove definitely that the substratum is not the source of dialyzable substances in the Abderhalden test. While these experiments are still in progress, I tried also to see if my assumption of the auto-digestion of serum in the Abderhalden test will hold good in the case of syphilis, for if the dialyzable substances should appear in this case, there will be no doubt as to their source, as the substratum in this case is not of protein nature.
As it was to be expected, the sera of syphilitics, when brought into dialyzing thimble with suitable amount of pure lipoid, often gave positive Abderhalden test, while sera of normal individuals, treated in similar way gave most often negative results. The adjustment of the amount of lipoid to be used in this test is very important, as the excess of it may by simple adsorption cause non-specific reaction, just as in the Wassermann test, the improper dose of antigen may cause the fixation of the complement in normal cases.
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