Abstract
The tuberculin-hypersensitiveness is now a generally known fact in the medical world, and it is applied, especially in the veterinary service, for the early detection of the tuberculosis, the true nature of it being obscure yet. Of course, many of scholars earnestly studied to explain the nature, and some of them said that the tuberculin reaction is caused as the reaction between the antigen and the antibody, while some others consider it as a mere increased sensitiveness or as a step toward the immunity against tubercle bacilli. I, also, attempted to explain the nature of this phenomenon expreimentally, employing the rabbit as experimental animals, and I selected the ophthalmic reaction as the best method. Followings are the results I reached from the experimental data.
I) Not only living tubercle bacilli, but also, dead (heated) bacilli, as Kraus & Volk, and others said, have the ability to hypersensitize actively the animals against tuberculin. We are not able completely to devoid off the special antigenic property by heating the bacilli at the boiling point.
II) The blood or the serum from the tuberculous and at the same time tuberculin-hypersensitive rabbits makes passively the same kind of animal tuberculin-hypersensitive, this special quality of the blood or the serum being destroyed at 100°C., and this quality can be taken off by absorption of the blood or serum with living or dead (heated) tubercle bacilli completely, therefore the special substance in the tuberculous blood is not tuberculin, but, on the contrary, antibody in its nature.
III) Passive tuberculin-hypersensitiveness is established 24 to 48 hours after the serum-injection, and disappears in 2 or 3 days.
