Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2009
Of the many methods employed to render a serum inactive, that by means of mechanical agitation has been the subject of several recent works, but the real nature of this phenomenon, as it occurs in shaken sera, is still unknown. The reason is the uncertainty regarding the nature of complement itself, and even the most satisfying explanation of the inactivation of complement by shaking would not probably throw much light on the nature of the complement. I give in the following a brief summary of the literature dealing with the inactivation of complement by mechanical agitation.