Abstract
Summary
1. When the serum of a patient in the early acute stage of rheumatic fever was mixed and incubated with a convalescent serum taken at an appropriate time from himself or another rheumatic patient, a precipitate formed. 2. The “phase substances” causing this reaction were present, but less frequently, in atypical pneumonia, nasopharyngitis, several other diseases, and rarely, in apparently normal blood donors. 3. Because cross-reactions occurred between serums from patients with different diseases, it is difficult to ascribe any etiological significance to the findings. 4. This reaction may be responsible for the occasional unfavorable response to blood or plasma transfusion of patients with rheumatic fever. 5. It is not clear whether this phenomenon is a manifestation of serum lability or of the formation of an auto-antigen-antibody system.
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