The specificity of serological reactions / by Karl Landsteiner.

  • Landsteiner, Karl, 1868-1943.
Date:
[1936], ©1936
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The specificity of serological reactions / by Karl Landsteiner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/194 (page 6)
    the other by ricin. Even more striking differences are demon- strable with crotin, a substance from the seeds of Croton tiglium which has haemolyzing and haemagglutinating properties, and with haemolysins derived from certain bacteria and animals.11 These lysins act strongly on the bloods of numerous species that are in no way related, but have little or no effect on others. For example, arachnolysin,12 contained in the spider Eperia dia- dema, reacts strongly wfith the blood of rabbit and man but has practically no effect on guinea pig or horse erythrocytes, while the latter blood is very sensitive to the lysins produced by tetanus bacilli. The natural antibodies, in the author’s opin- ion, belong in the same category (see p. 88). The action of plant agglutinins, not limited to a single sub- strate yet to some extent selective, has not commanded much attention in spite of its theoretical interest—the agglutinins are occasionally referred to in the literature as non-specific—and for this reason as well as the scarcity of reliable data, the fol- lowing experiment is presented. The highest dilutions were de- termined in which solutions prepared from seeds still agglu- tinated suspensions of red blood corpuscles. The titers after a given time are shown in Table i. It is of importance that cor- responding to the variations in the sensitivity of blood cells there are also distinct differences in the binding capacity for the agglutinins. Table i Blood Blood Rabbit Pigeon Horse Pigeon Bean extract 125 2000 Abrin 128 256 Lentil extract 160 O Ricin 4 S12 The reactions just described may properly be termed specific, and accordingly it seems adequate to define serological specific- ity as the disproportional action of a number of similar agents on a variety of related substrata. Depending upon the number 11 The action of snake venoms on different sorts of blood is dealt with by Kyes and Sachs (ii) and'Kyes (12). 12 Sachs (13).