Abstract
Summary
The complement fixing activity of preparations from leptospiral cultures and from leptospira infected chick embryos has been studied in the presence of immune rabbit serum. The antigenicity of culture supernatant fluids was low but tended to increase as the temperature of incubation and the age of the cultures increased. The addition of sodium desoxycholate to cultures increased still further the ability of culture supernates to fix complement. Boiling infected allantoic fluids with N/5 NaOH yielded a soluble, non-dialyzable antigen. L. pomona culture supernates, alkali treated allantoic fluids and washed suspensions of leptospirae from allantoic fluids reacted specifically with L. pomona immune rabbit-serum in the dilutions employed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.