THE JOURNAL OF
CUTANEOUS DISEASES
VOL. XXIII.
SEPTEMBER, 1905.
NO. 9.
L. DETRE and SELLEI: (Archiv für Derm. u. Syph., lxxii, No. 3, 1904, p. 323.)
This excellent article contains a careful consideration of agglutination in general and a description of important experimental research, as to the agglutination of blood in healthy and syphilitic individuals. Following a presentation of the method employed, the authors offer in detail its application in two cases of syphilis, and the tabulated results obtained from a study of the blood of fifty syphilitic subjects. Where the serum from one individual was employed, syphilitic blood showed increased agglutination in the proportion of 47 per cent. to 33 per cent., as compared with normal blood, but when the serum of a second normal individual was used, there was hardly any difference in the agglutination reaction in syphilitic and normal individuals. The authors would, therefore, conclude that as far as agglutination is concerned, syphilitic blood reacts like normal blood. It was further found that if normal serum caused agglutination of syphilitic blood, serum of a syphilitic subject did not cause agglutination of normal blood, but that if normal serum does not cause agglutination of syphilitic blood, syphilitic serum might or might not cause agglutination of normal blood.