It has been already discovered by Stillmark at the end of 19 th century that the animal red corpuscle shows the hemagglutination with "Ricin" a poisonous component in castor bean.
Araya and Kusunoki have also found several years ago that oil cor puscles suspended in the various kinds of body fluids, e.g., urine , saliva, and spinal fluid etc., were agglutinated by addition of ricin as if they had been red corpuscles. In this case, moreover, Araya et al. suggested that the titer for agglutination in the body fluid was likely variable with diseases.
Later, further clinical investigations were carried out on this point in detail at Ariga Clinic, Nihon University , and they found that in urine of serious tuberculosis, nephritis, nephrosis and emesis, markedly higher ag glutination was shown compared with that observed in normal urine.
Araya et al. have assumed that the hemagglutination of corpuscles will be caused by receptor which might exist on the surface of corpuscles to react with ricin , so something the configuration of which resembles to the receptor are liberated in the body fluid and adsorbed on the surface of oil corpuscles, which might give the phenomenon of agglutination of oil corpuscles by ricin.
To clarif y the character of such typical phenomenon, human and goat corpuscles, in stead of oil corpuscles, were investigated in the body fluids to observe the hemagglutination with ricin and their characteristic behaviors were found as shown below :
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