SEROLOGIC DIAGNOSIS OF SYPHILIS

Abstract

When complement fixation in syphilis was discovered by Wassermann and his colleagues and independently by Detre in 1906, it was naturally assumed to be a specific reaction between the syphilis antibody and Spirochaeta pallida present in the extracts of syphilitic tissues employed as antigens. On the subsequent discovery that saline and alcoholic extracts of normal mammalian tissues served equally well as antigen in the test, the idea of the Wassermann reaction being a specific antigen-antibody reaction was largely abandoned with the suggestion that the reaction was biologically nonspecific owing to the production in syphilis of a reagin characterized by its ability to sensitize and flocculate tissue lipids in vitro with the fixation of complement. But on the successful cultivation of S. pallida in pure culture by Noguchi in 1911 it was possible for the first time to investigate the problem by the use of saline suspensions and alcoholic extracts of