1 The Babies Hospital and the Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, N.Y.
A quantitative chemical method which determines the agglutinin nitrogen content has been shown to be applicable to H. pertussis therapeutic antisera.
The two human H. pertussis antisera available for therapeutic purposes contain approximately the same agglutinin nitrogen content per vial, about 1 mg. A vial of the two rabbit antisera analyzed contains approximately 20 mg. of agglutinin nitrogen.
A simple slide agglutination test is offered as a procedure for determining the degree of antibody excess in the sera of patients after serum therapy. The greater the content of agglutinin nitrogen in the therapeutic antiserum administered, the higher the relative agglutinin titer in the patient's serum.
Submitted on June 22, 1949