Effect of Immune Sera Upon the Phenomenon of Local Skin Reactivity to B. Typhosus Culture Filtrates.

Abstract

In a previous communication 1 a phenomenon of local skin reactivity to B. typhosus culture nitrates was described. The reactivity was induced by skin injections of the nitrate. If 24 hours later an intravenous injection of the same nitrate was given to the rabbit there appeared an extremely severe hemorrhagic necrosis at the site of the previous skin injections. The mechanism of the phenomenon is not fully understood as yet, since no complete experimental comparison was made between this phenomenen and manifestations of bacterial allergy. There were found, however, certain features which, considered together, distinguish this phenomenon from the known phenomena of bacterial hypersusceptibility and the Arthur phenomenon. These features are: the local reactivity; the short incubation period necessary for local preparation of the skin; the short duration of the state of reactivity; the ability to induce the reactivity by a single injection and the necessity to make the second injection of the toxic agent by the intravenous route.

This report concerns the relation of the specific antisera to the skin preparatory factors of the observed phenomenon. There was a double purpose in these studies: first, to add new data leading to the elucidation of the mechanism of the phenomenon, and secondly, should there occur neutralization of B. typhosus skin preparatory factors by specific sera, to determine whether the phenomenon could be advantageously used for titration of the neutralizing properties of the sera. In order to fulfill this plan the effect of homologous normal and heterologous sera upon the skin preparatory factors of the phenomenon of local skin reactivity to B. typhosus culture filtrates was studied.