Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2009
The Japanese investigators (Inada and Ido) who discovered the Spirochaeta icterohaemorrhagiae, the cause of infectious jaundice, showed that the serum of patients who had recovered from the disease contained immune substances which were capable of destroying the spirochaetes in the blood and tissues of an experimentally infected guinea-pig. They found that if the serum were injected into the guinea-pig prior to the appearance of icterus the disease was inhibited in all cases. The same result was obtained with the serum of immunised goats.