Abstract
Summary
1. A working hypothesis concerning the nature of serum sickness involving a dissection of the antigen into “antigenic” component and “combining” component of the antigen is presented. 2. Evidence is presented that injection of aggregated BSA in amounts capable of inducing an immune response does not lead to the renal lesions of serum sickness in the rabbit. If, however, this stimulus was combined with subsequent administration of soluble BSA serum sickness nephritis occurred. 3. BSA centrifuged for 5 hours at 105,000 × g had lesser capacity to induce serum sickness than did an unmodified BSA. 4. These observations are consistent with the view that the production of serum sickness nephritis can be dissected into two separate components which can be separately manipulated.
The technical assistance of Miss A. Opstad and Mrs. L. Lang is gratefully acknowledged.
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