The Gamma Globulins

IN 1952 Bruton reported the remarkable finding of the absence of gamma globulin from the serum of an eight-year boy who had been followed for a number of years in the pediatric section of the Walter Reed Army Hospital. The child was well up to the age of four years, when septic arthritis of the left knee developed. During the next four years of his life he had 19 episodes of pneumococcal sepsis, repeated attacks of otitis media and 2 bouts of pneumococcal pneumonia. Although these illnesses were successfully treated with antibiotics immunization of the child with polyvalent pneumococcal vaccines . . .