Studies on a Skin Test for Western Equine Encephalitis

[摘要] 1. 1. In a group of 44 individuals who had had clinical Western equine encephalitis, dermal hypersensitivity was observed in 84% of the adults and 56% of the children one year later. On the basis of the present observations, a positive reaction may be tentatively defined as consisting of palpable induration of at least 5 mm or of erythema with a mean diameter of at least 15 mm. Reactions of this type and magnitude were not encountered in 108 normal control individuals tested.2. 2. Positive reactions were of significantly larger area in adults than in children.3. 3. Nonspecific reactions in control individuals were minimized by the use of a 1:10 dilution of skin-testing antigen. This dilution was ultimately used in testing “immunes.”4. 4. Use of a 0.1-ml of a 1:10 dilution of skin test antigen did not serve as a stimulus for “de novo” production of either complement-fixing or neutralizing antibodies. However, this dilution of material appeared to “recall” complement-fixing antibodies in individuals who had had previous exposure to the disease.

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）