Abstract
The problem of obtaining suitable material for the determination of the antibody content of tissues or organs has usually been met by grinding the tissues with sand and extracting in a solvent, either physiological saline alone or equal parts of the saline solution and glycerine. The method is tedious and the material obtained has already undergone dilution which is not always desirable. The ease with which tissue juices are obtained by pressure in certain experiments carried out by Dr. Foster of the Department of Biochemistry suggested to us the possibility of extracting organs by this procedure for use in immunological experiments. The method consists in placing the tissue in an hydraulic press and extracting its fluid content under a pressure of approximately 16,000 pounds per square inch. The method may be used for any organ but is particularly serviceable in extracting skin and subcutaneous tissue where the large amount of connective tissue makes other methods of extraction difficult.
The tissue to be extracted is cut into pieces and mixed with a large volume of portions of filter paper about 1 cm. square. The whole mixture is cut up further until it consists of a grumous mass of filter paper which has absorbed all the bits of tissue to it. The filter paper offers traction and prevents the tissues from sliding out of the press. This mixture of filter paper and tissue is then wrapped in a piece of cheese cloth and is ready to be pressed for the extraction of its fluid content. The press used is an hydraulic press manufactured by Fred S. Carver of New York City, capable of exerting a pressure of 20,000 pounds per square inch.
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