The specificity of serological reactions / by Karl Landsteiner.

  • Landsteiner, Karl, 1868-1943.
Date:
[1936], ©1936
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The specificity of serological reactions / by Karl Landsteiner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In the preparation of this review it was primarily the author’s intention to give an account of the experiments on antigens and serological reactions with simple compounds carried out by himself and his colleagues and concurrently to discuss the phenomena of serological specificity, not yet fully explained, and certain related topics. It was chiefly the chemical aspects of the immunological reactions that have been considered, and the material was selected according to its bearing upon basic questions. Within these limits the writer has attempted to in- clude the salient facts and to offer a bibliography comprehensive enough for the use of workers in the field. On the other hand, explanations of elementary concepts and phenomena of serology are provided for readers not acquainted with the subject. Discussions of similar scope but presented from different points of view may be found in several of the books and treatises in the list given, which cover the whole or special phases of immunology. These may be consulted for further references. Since the appearance of the German edition in 1933 signifi- cant new facts have come to light, necessitating changes in order to bring the matter up to date; otherwise the plan of the former text has been followed in the main. The sequence of the chapters broadly corresponds to the de- velopment of the subject. Thus, the specificity of natural anti- gens and antibodies is first taken up, then artificial conjugated antigens and the serological reactions of simple chemical com- pounds, and finally the more recent work on the chemistry of cell antigens. The author wishes to express his gratitude to Dr. H. Lampl, J. van der Scheer, and the late Dr. E. Prasek for their most valuable assistance in the investigations on antigens, and to tender his thanks to those friends who have helped in revising the manuscript. New York, January 1936