"Para-Agglutination and Para-Heredity."

Abstract

The term “Para-agglutination” was introduced by Kuhn and Woithe1 to designate the following phenomenon: Colon bacilli isolated from the feces of a dysentery patient were found to be agglutinated with antidysentery serum at a much higher dilution than strains of colon bacilli obtained from other sources.The term “Para-heredity” was introduced by Wollman and Wollman2 to designate the acquisition of agglutinability by anti-typhoid serum, by colon bacilli which had been grown together with typhoid bacilli in broth.Apparently similar phenomena are the so-called “hybridization” of typhoid and dysentery bacilli reported by Almquist,3 the acquisition of toxogenicity by non-scarlatinal streptococci when grown in scarlet fever streptococcus filtrates reported by Frobisher and Brown,4 and the recently described “hybridization of proteins” of Manwaring.5I have performed the following experiments: Colon bacilli were cultivated in broth with typhoid bacilli, in one experiment for 8 generations, in another for 17. From ...