In Vitro Anaphylaxis in the Surviving Intestine

Abstract

Abstract The response of surviving smooth muscle from a sensitized animal on treatment with the antigen used for sensitization may be termed in vitro anaphylaxis. This was first demonstrated in 1910 by Schultz (1) on isolated segments of guinea pig intestine. Unfortunately his experimental methods for demonstration of the phenomenon were not well suited for isolated intestinal segments. The horse serum used as antigen produced contractions in both normal and desensitized tissue as well as in the sensitized segments. Therefore the interpretation of a specific response to the antigen had to be made from a quantitative difference in the degree of contraction rather than on a qualitative basis. In 1913 Dale (2) criticized Schultz's methods for showing in vitro anaphylaxis, especially the use of surviving intestinal segments as the test tissue. He introduced as an alternative tissue the virgin guinea pig uterus that had proved so successful in his studies on standardization of pituitary extracts.