Specific Precipitins in Gonococcal Infections

Abstract

Since the discovery by Kraus,1 in 1897, of specific precipitins in anticholera and other immune serum, and of Bordet2 and Tchistowitch,3 in 1899, of specific precipitins in the serums of animals injected with foreign proteins, the study of specific precipitation has been pursued extensively. Bruckner and Cristeanu4 were the first to study precipitins in gonococcal infection, in 1906. Gonococci grown on blood agar were treated with 0.15 % caustic soda, filtered through porcelain, and mixed with antigonococcus serum, in which a marked precipitate was found whereas there was no precipitate in mixtures with normal serum. Wollstein5 obtained precipitate with antigonococcus rabbit serum and various forms of extracts of gonococci. Torrey,6 using a culture filtrate, obtained marked precipitate with immune rabbit serum, but only a slight reaction with the serum of animals injected with meningococcus, the micrococcus catarrhalis, and none at all with antistaphylococcus serum. He also observed that stronger reactions were obtained with the homologous than the heterologous strains, and this led him to suggest that there may be dififerent types of gonococci, especially as experiments with other immunity reactions indicated that such would be the case.