The author examined the mumps skin test on three groups of inhabitants, who were exposed to the mumps epidemic in 1954. The three groups had different aspects of epidemic from one another at the time of the investigation.
Henle's S and V antigens, which were confirmed to be the best among the antigens in the first report, were employed throughout the study, and their practical value was estimated from the epidemiological standpoint.
The results were as follows:
1) Of those, who had history of mumps in the past, 85.7 per cent showed a positive reaction with Henle's S antigen, and 74.3 per cent, with Henle's V antigen.
2) With Henle's skin test antigens, frequency distribution curves determined by the diameter of erythema were different in their forms according to the three groups examined. This was reasonably explained by the difference in herd immunity of each group. With Henle's V antigen such difference in frequency distribution curves was not observed.
3) The incidence rate of mumps, f ollowed up after the examination of the skin test, was 5.1 per cent in those, who had shown a positive reaction, and 24.1 per cent in those, who had shown a negative reaction.
4) From the results of this field experiment it was concluded, that the boundary of positive and negative skin reactions should be set at 10 mm in the diameter of erythema, 24 hours after the injection, if either of Henle's S and V antigens was so standardized as to contain an unit of complement fixation antigen in 0.2 ml.
5) Some differences in the results were noticed between Henle's S and V antigens. Henle's S antigen was regarded to give a better index of mumps susceptibility or immunity than Henle's V antigen. With the former a fairly distinct correlation of the skin reaction to the blood antibody level was observed.
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