Circulating Antibodies to Egg Albumin in Man

Summary1) Sera from 1086 patients admitted to a general hospital and from 38 medical students were examined for antibodies to egg albumin using both a microprecipitin technic and a very sensitive hemagglutination technic. 2) Of 450 sera examined by the microprecipitin technic, all were negative. 3) Only 15 patients of the 1124 or 1.3% were found to have antibodies by the hemagglutination technic. Their HA titers ranged from 25 to 2190 with a median of 80. None of these HA positive sera contained precipitins. 4) Five of these patients with circulating antibody had abdominal complaints, 4 were pregnant and the remaining 6 had miscellaneous illnesses.