On the Transfer of the So-Called Normal-Antibodies from Mother to Offspring

Abstract

Summary By examining the transmission of the agglutinins normally occurring in the blood from mother to offspring in goats, I have only in one case of fourteen been able to prove their recurrence; in all the others the kids were born without agglutinin and probably derived it from the mother animal through the milk, in which it is to be found accumulated at parturition. From the milk as well as from the kid's serum it disappears in the course of a few days; then follows a period of a few months in which the blood of the kid is free of agglutinin, and then it appears again, probably in consequence of an immunization from the flora of the digestive tract. The research was concerned with coli and typhoid agglutinins, as well as agglutinin against rabbit and horse blood corpuscles. In the blood of the kid there was in some cases more, in others less of the “normal antibodies” than in the blood of the mother animal, and only in one case the blood of the kid contained more than the colostrum, so that it is not possible to deduce any quantitative rule from these experiments. In the colostrum the titer was higher than in the serum of the mother animal. By nursing experiments it was shown in one case that the agglutinin is probably transmitted to the kid through the mother's milk, in another case the result was questionable. The agglutinin maximum in the blood of the kid may occur as early as about 11 hours after birth. By injections of horse blood corpuscles into kids it is possible to increase the agglutinating power as well against these corpuscles as against coli bacilli; vice versa by injection of coli bacilli the agglutinating power is increased also against horse blood corpuscles.