Loss of Immune Substances from the Body

Abstract

Summary The paper dealt with diphtheria antitoxin in the salivas of “naturally” immune persons and of a toxoid-immunized person. The data owe much of their significance to the unusually high degree of antitoxic immunity of the people used as subjects with whom it was possible to establish ratios between the saliva and serum antitoxin more accurately than would be possible with subjects possessing the more common low degrees of immunity. The concentration of antitoxin in the saliva was directly related tothe concentration in the blood; the average ratio of was 1.4 × 10-3; the ratio remained of the same order of magnitude in spite of the wide range in serum antitoxin concentrations (1.25 to 60 units) occurring in the group of people studied. Exception to the usual ratio appeared to be characteristic of certain individual persons. The data indicate that during a year's time the antitoxin swallowed with the saliva would be equivalent to approximately 25 per cent of the total amount in the blood. Unless reabsorption occurs the gastro-intestinal tract must be considered an important channel of loss.