Studies upon hypersusceptibility and immunity / by M.J. Rosenau and John F. Anderson.

  • Rosenau, M. J. (Milton Joseph), 1869-1946.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Studies upon hypersusceptibility and immunity / by M.J. Rosenau and John F. Anderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Part L THE SENSITIZING SUBSTANCE. We ventured the suggestion in our former publication that the sul)stance that sensitizes the guinea pig is the same as that which later poisons it; profound chemical changes perhaps in the central nerve cells, are probably produced by the first injection. Our sub- sequent work has produced nothing to alter this working hypothesis. Vaughan advances the theory that the first injection of the strange proteid is broken up into components, one of which is toxic, but that the animal is not poisoned because this breaking up takes place slowly. The cells, however, learn from this lesson how to break up the complex molecule, so that when more of the strange proteid is introduced at the second injection it is violently rent asunder, quickly liberating large quantities of the toxic principle of the complex molecule. Vaughan and heeler* have elaborated this explanation by fur- ther studies upon egg-white and bacterial proteids split into poison- ous and nonpoisonous portions. These authors believe that when egg-white, or the nonpoisonous portion of egg-white, is injected into a fresh animal certain cells of the body are so inliuenced that they elaborate a new ferment, which, in the form of zymogen, remains in the cell until activated by the second injection, when it is set free and splits up the egg-white in a manner similar to that used by Vaughan in the laboratory. Vaughan and Wheeler believe that the effect induced in the animal is the same as that caused by the poisonous por- tions of egg-white as they have split it up in the retort. Currie* suggests that the first injection of serum results after an interval in the formation of an antibody. When the second injection of serum is given, after at least ten days from the first, the antibody- producing .substance of the second injection of serum and the antibody “Vaughan, V. C.; Discussion of “Hypersusceptibility,” by M. J. Rosenau and J. F. Anderson. Journ. Am. Med. Assn., Vol. 47, No. 13, Sept. 29, 1906, p. 1009. Vaughan, Victor C., and Wheeler, May: Effects of egg-white and its split products upon animals. A study of susceptibility and immunity. Abstract of papers to be read at twenty-second annual meeting of Assn. Ain. Physicians, Wash- ington, May 7-9, 1907, p. 9. ‘^Currie, J. R.: On the supersensitation of persons suffering from diphtheria by repeated injections of horse serum. .louni. Hygiene, Vol. 7, No. 1, Jan., 1907, pp. 3.5-60. (11) 1