Variation in Agglutinin Formation in Mental Hospital Patients and Its Probable Relation to Focal Sepsis

It is well known that injection of protein substance into the blood causes the appearance in the blood of antibodies to the protein. Injection of bacteria is followed by the appearance of several kinds of antibodies, and the substances which produce “clumping” constitute one, or rather two, of these antibodies. The appearance of agglutinins in the blood following vaccination or infection has been shown to occur regularly in such a large number of individuals, and in animals, that there can be no doubt that this production of antibodies is a natural phenomenon connected with successful resistance to the deleterious effects of the organisms. Non-production or abnormalities in the production of agglutinins following injection of bacteria represents a pathological process probably of the nature of sepsis.