Detection of Antibody by Complement-Fixation in Sera of Man and Monkey Convalescent from Mumps. ∗

Abstract

The importance of mumps as a disease among military personnel is considerable. In the last war it stood third among the diseases causing time lost from duty, being surpassed only by venereal diseases and influenza. 1 2

Although the work of Johnson and Goodpasture, 3 using Macaccus mulatta as the experimental animal, established the etiological agent of mumps as a filterable virus, the practical implications of their findings have not been realized. Thus, no laboratory tests for the diagnosis of the infection or tests for susceptibility are available. Moreover, no means are at hand by which the potency of convalescent sera which have been employed as prophylaxis may be assayed. Accordingly, we undertook the repetition of the basic experiments of Johnson and Goodpasture with the object of extending them in these directions. In this paper we report briefly on a complement-fixation test for the detection and estimation of antibody in the sera of man and monkey convalescent from mumps.

About 3 cc of saliva collected on the 1st and 2nd days of the disease from a typical case of epidemic parotitis was introduced into Stensen's duct of a monkey (Macaccus mulatta). On the 5th day the gland, which was somewhat enlarged, was removed under ether anesthesia, weighed and emulsified by grinding in infusion broth to make a 20% suspension. This was then inoculated into both ducts of another monkey. The animal, on the 7th day following inoculation, developed marked swelling of both parotid glands with considerable subcutaneous edema of the cheeks. In this way the virus has been passed in series through 5 monkeys—the last of which received material obtained by nitration of the parotid suspension through an Elford collodion membrane of 515 mμ pore diameter.