Abstract
Landsteiner, in 1901, discovered three human blood groups, and soon afterward, Decastello and Sturli, pursuing the study with Landsteiner's knowledge and encouragement, found the fourth group. Landsteiner recognized the existence in human serum of two isohemagglutinins, which were designated with small letters a and b, or (by von Dungern and Hirschfeld) α and β and two isoagglutinable substances in the corpuscles which were called A and B.
Quite recently Guthrie and Huck have reported the discovery of a third pair of isoagglutination elements, which, to bring the terminology into conformity with the previously existing one, we will refer to as isoagglutinin c and agglutinable substance C.
The relation of the exceptional individuals observed by Guthrie and Huck to the original four blood groups is shown in Table I.
In the course of a class demonstration of the two original pairs of isoagglutination elements, the serum of one of us (A. F. C., a Group I individual) was absorbed, first with the washed corpuscles of a Group II individual (Levine) and then with the washed corpuscles of a Group III individual (Sutton). The supernatant fluid, after these absorptions, no longer clumped the ccrpuscles of the respective Group II and Group III individuals, but still possessed a vigorous power of agglutinating the corpuscles of a Group IV individual (Johnson) which were agglutinable by the serum of both Levine and Sutton.
This observation indicated the presence of another undescribed pair of isoagglutination elements, which we shall tentatively designate as × (isoagglutinin) and × (isoagglutinable substance).
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