In collaboration with Horst in 1970 my colleagues and I reported Australia antigen in urine and feces of patients with Au-positive hepatitis,1,2 an observation confirmed by others. Grob and Jemelka3 found Australia antigen in the stools of patients with acute hepatitis, and Blainey et al4 isolated it from urine of patients with renal transplants. After examination of urine and feces specimens by electron microscopy, we found not only the common 200-Angstrom particles but also the large (Dane's) particles of about 450 A diameter, which is believed to be the hepatitis virus per se.5
Materials and Methods
Serial samples of urine and feces of five patients with acute hepatitis, two with chronic hepatitis, one with subactue hepatitis, and one with Kimmelstiel-Wilson's syndrome, as well as materials from three normal controls, were collected and examined within 24 hours according to the method described later in this paper.