The complement fixation test in syphilis, commonly known as the Wassermann test.

  • Great Britain. Ministry of Health
Date:
1920
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The complement fixation test in syphilis, commonly known as the Wassermann test. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I.—Introduction. SIR, | I BEG to present to you a short account of the events which led up to the undertaking of the important researches described in these reports. In 1914 a Sub-Committee of the Royal Society of Medicine was formed, under the chairmanship of Professor F. W. Andrewes, F.R.S., to consider the merits of the various methods of con- ducting the Wassermann test for syphilis which were then in vogue, and to make such recommendations as might seem advisable for improvement in its technique. During the period of its sittings Dr. (now Sir Arthur) Newsholme, K.C.B., Medical Officer of the Local Government Board, suggested to the chairman that, if further research were required to assist the Committee, a grant might be obtained from the Local Govern- ment Board. The best method of employing such a grant was considered at the next meeting of the Sub-Committee, and it was agreed that further research to clear up many points on which workers were in dispute was most desirable. The Military Hospital, Rochester Row, was chosen as the place for the research, on account of the control over patients which was possible in that institution, and it was eventually arranged with the War Office Authorities that I should carry out the research, reporting to the Committee from time to time. The war commenced less than a month after these arrangements had been completed and before a start had been made at Rochester Row. [arly in 1917, after I had returned to Rochester Row, Sir Arthur Newsholme asked me if I could possibly take up the work with assistance from his own staff. I agreed to give any assistance I could from the resources in pathological material at Rochester Row and by placing my ideas at the disposal of the Local Government Board’s bacteriologists—Drs. Eastwood, Griffith, and Scott. Sir Arthur Newsholme was good enough to suggest that the research should be under my direction, but I cannot be said to have filled that position, since other duties prevented me from keeping in such close touch with it as would be required of the director of an investigation into a subject of such great complexity. The research should therefore be regarded as having been conducted in all its main features by the present pathological staff of the Ministry of Health. At the time of the commencement of this investigation the Special Committee on the Standardisation of Pathological Methods, appointed by the Medical Research Committee, had recently taken up the subject of the Wassermann test, and I had been co-opted for the purpose.
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