Agglutinins in Mother's Blood, Baby's Blood, Mother's Milk and Placental Blood

An increase in agglutinins against the enteric group of organisms was found in blood withdrawn during the convalescent stage when compared with that withdrawn during the acute stage of poliomyelitis.1In order to obtain information as to the agglutination titer of normal persons, among others, I tested the placental blood of new-born infants and coincidentally the serum of the mothers. Mother's blood was usually found to have a massive content of agglutinins against enteric organisms. On the other hand, the placental blood contained a relatively small amount of agglutinins. In relative and fundamental experiments, Smith and Little2found Bacillus coli in large numbers in the spleen, liver and kidneys in calves that died of scours. They showed that calves fed colostrum were protected against this disease. It is possible that the serum of the dams contained protective antibodies. Later, the same authors3showed that the serum of