H & O Agglutinins in Cholera Patients

The development of agglutinins for V. cholerce in cholera patients has been recorded by a number of workers. Greig (1914) examined the blood of 363 cholera patients and found that in a few cases cholera agglutinins had developed as early as the second day of the disease but this was exceptional. The specific agglutinins were well marked on the sixth day of the disease and the titre remained high from the sixth to seventeenth day. A drop occurred in the agglutination curve on the twentieth day. The titre varied from 1 in 40 to 1 in 1,000. Agglutinins were absent in the majority of the fatal cases of cholera. In cases in which both V. cholerce and inagglutinable vibrios were isolated, agglutinins were developed only against V. cholerce and not against the other vibrios. These findings have been corroborated by subsequent workers. In view of the recent work on the antigenic structure of V. cholerce it was thought desirable to study the development of the ' H ' and ' 0 ' agglutinins in cholera patients. The blood from 175 cholera patients was examined. Agglutination test was put up in Dreyer's tube using a formolized (0.2 per cent) suspension of a young agar culture as the H antigen and a boiled suspension in saline as the 0 antigen. Alcoholtreated vibrios or vibrios suspended in 0.5 Pel cent lithium chloride were not as satisfactory as the boiled suspension. Final readings were taken after 18 hours in a water bath at 55?C. The results of the agglutination test and the bacteriological findings are given below 111 tabular form.