Immune sera : haemolysins, cytotoxins, and precipitins / by A. Wasserman.

  • Wasserman, August von, 1866-1925.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Immune sera : haemolysins, cytotoxins, and precipitins / by A. Wasserman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Nomenclature.—In place of the name substance sensibilatrice Ehrlich first introduced the term immune body, later on he called it the amboceptor. In the following pages we shall use the term immune body, as this had already been used by R. Pfeiffer to designate the same substance in bactericidal serum. Other names proposed for this substance have been substance fixatnce by Metchnikoff, copula, desmon, preparator by Mtiller. Instead of the name alexin, Ehrlich now uses the term complement in order to express the idea that this body completes the action of the immune body. In contrast to the specific affinity which the red cells possess for the immune body, these cells pos- sess no affinity whatever for the alexin, as has been shown by the second of Ehrlich's experiments. The alexin, therefore, possesses no combining group which can attach itself directly to the red blood- cell. It acts on these cells only through an inter- mediary, the immune body, which therefore must possess two binding groups, one which attaches to the red blood-cell and the other to the alexin of normal serum. As already stated, the group which attaches to the red blood-cell possesses a much stronger affinity than that which combines with the alexin. This follows from the last two experiments of Ehrlich before cited, in which he showed that at the lower temperature and with both substances present with the blood-cells only the immune body combined with the cells, while