Studies on the relationship between toxin anaphylaxis and antitoxic immunity III. Significance of allergic reaction on the neutralization of toxin injected intracutaneously

It has hitherto been believed that the antitoxic immunity is established by the circulating antitoxin and that the allergy is caused by antigen antibody reaction in the tissues. However, there are some findings which can not be explained by this thesis. For example, as reported by Kurokawa et al. (1951), the neutralizing capacity of the immunized guinea pigs to the toxin injected intracutaneously could not be explained by the circulating antitoxin alone. Moreover, the ratio of the tissue antitoxin concentration to the circulating antitoxin concentration is different depending on the period after immunization and the neutralization index parallels with the ratio of tissue antitoxin/circulating antitoxin (Ishinaka et al., 1955). This finding implies that tissue antitoxin plays an important role in Schick reaction. But, the dosis of antitoxin extracted from the skin of immunized guinea pigs was relatively little as compared with the neutralizing activity of the guinea pigs to the toxin injected intracutaneously. Therefore, it is doubtful that the toxin injected intracutaneously is neutralized with the tissue antitoxin alone. In the present study, homologous and heterologous antitoxins were used for passive immunization and the relation between the degree of immunity, determined by Schick test and the concentration of tissue-antitoxin was studied. As the results, the significance of allergic reaction on the neutralization of toxin in the tissues was clarified.