The First Manifestation of the Developing Hypersensitiveness.

Abstract

The response of tuberculous guinea pigs to the treatment with egg white, if introduced into tuberculous lesions, differs in 2 important points from the response of normal animals. 1 1. In tuberculous animals all manifestations of the immunization process (the sensitization and antibody production) develop in a largely increased measure. 2. There develops often a strong tuberculin type of skin sensitiveness to egg white, which we never observe in normal animals. This usually precedes the other manifestations of the sensitiveness and for a few days it might persist in pure form. A little later it is followed by the development of acute anaphylaxis, the anaphylactic type of skin sensitiveness, the protracted anaphylactic shock and the appearance of antibodies in the serum.

These characteristics of the immunity response of tuberculous animals suggested the possibility that the immunization process of normal animals also passes through a phase corresponding to the tuberculin sensitiveness, which is only slightly developed and has so far escaped attention. The tuberculin type of skin sensitiveness is possibly the strong development of this early stage of the immunization process. Observations support this supposition, namely, that the slight skin reactions in normal guinea pigs soon (5 to 7 days) after treatment are in many respects different from the usual anaphylactic type of skin reactions and more like very slight tuberculin reactions. They often appear delayed and although very slight, persist for 48 hours, in marked contrast to the quickly developing and transient reactions in passively sensitized guinea pigs. The recognition of marked differences in the microscopical structure between the tuberculin and anaphylactic type of skin reactions, described in the foregoing note, offered us a method of determining to which type the slight reactions belong, and of testing the place of the tuberculin sensitiveness in the whole immunization process.