On the presence of hæm-agglutinins, hæm-opsonins, and hæmolysins in the blood obtained from infections and non-infectious diseases in man. (Second report.)

On July 31, 1908, my preliminary communication on this subject was received by the Royal Society and was read on November 12, 1908. In this report attention was drawn to certain phenomena occurring when normal and immune human serum was allowed to act in the presence of normal and immune human blood cells. The whole of the investigations were carried out with human blood obtained from various infective and non-infective diseases in man. The technique adopted in all experiments was referred to in detail, and will not be described in the present communication. The most important results were obtained in the examination of the agglutinative properties of the blood when an interaction took place between serum and red cells. It was shown that auto-agglutination was a rare phenomenon, but iso-agglutination was common. In some instances hæm-agglutinated red cells were altered in shape and size, especially when the clumps were exceptionally large. Attention was drawn to the distinction between agglutination of red blood corpuscles and agglutination of rouleaux. Saturation experiments were performed, and the specificity of the various reactions was demonstrated. Immune serum from cases of infection with the bacillus typhosus was rendered specifically inactive by saturation with suitable red cells, although the bacterial agglutinins remained.