Experiments on Transfer of Cutaneous Sensitivity to Simple Compounds

Abstract

In the course of experiments to passively transfer skin sensitiveness to simple compounds an attempt was made to induce sensitivity by injecting peritoneal exudates from sensitized animals. Guinea pigs were rendered sensitive to picryl chloride in the manner previously described, 1 using conjugates (guinea pig stromata treated with picryl chloride) in conjunction with intraperitoneal injections of killed tubercle bacilli. To produce exudates, killed tubercle bacilli (or tuberculin) were injected intraperitoneally about 3 weeks from the beginning of the treatment, when substantial tuberculin hyper-sensitivity was established.

On injecting such exudates intraperitoneally into normal animals, the recipients in most of the experiments were seen to develop sensitivity to picryl chloride; when then a drop of an oil solution of the substance was put on the skin, erythematous reactions, mostly of high color, were apparent on the next day. The phenomenon was found to be due not to the clarified fluid but to the sediment obtained upon centrifugation. Among the possible explanations, an active sensitization through residual antigenic material in the peritoneal exudates seems rather improbable because a transfer was possible also with the exudate of animals in which the injection of dead tubercle bacilli and picryl stromata was made under the skin of the neck (using as a vehicle “Aquaphor” (Duke Laboratories) and paraffin oil, according to a method devised by Freund 2 ). This is further supported by the appearance of the sensitivity after a short interval, namely, 2 days after injection of sufficient material, and fading of the reactivity within a few days. Finally, there is preliminary evidence that moderate heating sufficient to kill the exudate cells abolishes the effect. Consequently one would be inclined to assume that the sensitivity is produced by an activity in the recipient of the surviving cells, if not by antibodies carried by these.