The Toxicity of Human Serum for the Guinea Pig. Serum in Various Clinical Conditions

[摘要] When normal horse serum was used in large amounts as an antigen in the human, the phenomenon of a toxicity of the serum of such treated persons for the guinea pig was found to occur more regularly and to continue for a longer period of time than had been shown to be the case in our former experiments with sera of persons treated with various immune sera. This increase is attributed to the relatively large amounts of serum with which the patients were treated.Certain cases were found where the serum taken at a pretreatment bleeding contained the factor for toxicity. This was usually, but not always, accompanied with a higher-than-normal (heterophilic) agglutinin titer for sheep red cells. Such sera tended to become more toxic subsequent to treatment of the patient along with an increase of the agglutinin and hemolysin titers. When the sera of a group of seriously ill patients were tested, the phenomenon of toxicity was found with considerable frequency, especially in those suffering from syphilis and acute infectious processes. Of the sera of the last, the toxicity was correlated with the presence in the serum of heterophilic antibody (sheep cell agglutinin in a titer above that normally found) in 50 per cent of the cases.It is evident that the toxicity of human serum for the guinea pig must be ascribed to two or more different factors in the serum: one of these its content in heterophilic antibody, the other as yet undetermined.

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）