The Purification of Abortin

The studies of Fleischner and Meyer 1 have shown that guinea-pigs infected with Brucella abortus develop cutaneous hypersensitiveness which may be detected by the intradermal inoculation of suspensions of dried Br. abortus cultures or of broth autolysates. Difficulties were repeatedly encountered 2 in the preparation of abortins, typhoidins, etc., nontoxic to normal skins but effective in eliciting cutaneous reactions in infected animals. An attempt was therefore made to purify the abortin. In this connection the principles set forth by Zinsser and his co-workers and by Long and Seibert in the purification of tuberculin have been investigated. From the beginning the data collected in this laboratory did not corroborate the findings on tuberculin published in the earlier papers by Zinsser and his co-workers. Since the more recent reports from the same laboratory have refuted the deductions drawn from the preliminary work, it is deemed unnecessary to review in detail the earlier