The diagnostic importance of the tuberculin test is generally recognized, although the specificity of the reaction is still being discussed in the literature. There is, however, much less agreement as to the choice of the most practical method,
In 1890 Koch introduced the generalized or subcutaneous tuberculin test. In 1902 Branner observed a local reaction of the skin around the site of injection of the therapeutic dose of tuberculin then in use.
It was not until Pirquet discovered the exceeding sensitivity of the skin as an indicator of tuberculosis that one was able to study tuberculosis in its character of an endemic disease. A few months after Pirquet had made known his cutaneous method, efforts were made to modify it, both in the direction of increasing its sensitivity and in that of avoiding traumatism. The efforts in the first direction led to the development of the Mantoux-Mendel intracutaneous test (described