Abstract
Some observations which Dr. Rackemann and one of us made a few years ago indicated that when serum disease followed the injection of horse serum in human beings anti-bodies, such as precipitin, anaphylactic antibodies, and skin hypersensitiveness to horse serum appeared as a rule toward the termination of the serum sickness. It was considered that the excessive production of antibodies followed the cellular reaction which was made evident by the serum sickness. In two of the cases that were studied, serum disease did not follow the injection of horse serum and anti-bodies did not appear in the circulation. The reason for this variation in susceptibility, a condition that has long been puzzling, has not been satisfactorily explained.
The object of the present investigation was to determine, if possible, whether the presence of antigen, namely, horse serum, bore any relation to serum disease or to the production of antibodies. It is known that by the method of specific precipitation a reaction for horse serum may be obtained in the blood, both of animals and of human beings, for many days after the injection of horse serum. Since reactions for horse serum cannot be obtained in the urine, it is improbable that horse serum is secreted as such by the kidneys.
The method employed has been to estimate by means of specific precipitin reactions the presence of horse serum at given intervals after its injection into human beings for therapeutic purposes in pneumonia and at the same time to follow the appearance and curves of precipitin for horse serum. Preliminary observations on rabbits showed that when 5 C.C. of horse serum per kilo body weight was injected intravenously, reactions for horse serum could be obtained in the blood of the rabbit over a period of from 7 days to three weeks.
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