The investigations reported in this paper have to do with various chemical, physical and immunologic studies of the cerebrospinal fluid and blood of syphilitics and nonsyphilitics and, also, with the factors concerned in the colloidal gold and the Wassermann reactions. The experiments fall more or less into two groups and so, for convenience in discussion, we have divided our paper into two parts: I. Ultrafiltration of Syphilitic Serum; II. The Substances Concerned in the Colloidal Gold Test and the Nature of the Reaction.
Ultrafiltration of Syphilitic Serum
Part I
I. INTRODUCTION
The nature of the active substance concerned in the Wassermann reaction has been discussed by many authors and numerous theories have been advanced as to the nature of this substance. Citron and Reicher1 regarded it to be of a lipoid nature. Berczeller and Schillinger2 extracted syphilitic serum by ether and alcohol. The Wassermann reaction on the serum was weakened