The Influence of Dosage and Route of Injection on the Antibody Response of Human Subjects to the Specific Carbohydrate of the Type Viii Pneumococcus 1

The readiness with which immune bodies could be demonstrated in human subjects following the injection of the specific carbohydrate of the Type VIII pneumococcus (1) offered an opportunity to study, in man, the effect of dosage and of the route of injection upon antibody production with a carbohydrate antigen. Although numerous in- vestigators have made similar studies with whole bacterial antigens in lower animals and in man, no data are available concerning the comparative antigenic activity, in man, of purified bacterial fractions given in different amounts or by dif- ferent routes. The development of antibodies following injections of type-specific polysaccarides was first demonstrated by Francis and Tillett (2) in the course of their investigations on cutaneous reactions in lobar pneumonia.