Wright also showed that opsonins are just as specific as agglutinins are--that is, a micrococcus opsonin prepares micrococci only for phagocytosis and not streptococci or any other bacteria.
The dead microbes answer this purpose; they excite the production of the opsonin appropriate to them and yet are not themselves dangerous, since they are dead.
When subsequently (or possibly concurrently in small quantity) living microbes of the same disease enter the blood, the opsonin is ready for them.
To inject a vaccine into a patient without first testing his opsonin is as near murder as a respectable practitioner can get.
Send a drop of the patient's blood to the laboratory at St. Anne's; and in fifteen minutes I'll give you his opsonin index in figures.
But outside myself and the handful of men I am training at St Anne's, there is nobody as yet who has mastered the opsonin treatment.
The opsonin is simple rot, as any capable surgeon can tell you; but we're all delighted to see your personal qualities officially recognized.
Opsonin is what you butter the disease germs with to make your white blood corpuscles eat them.
Our friend Ridgeon will be gratified to hear that I have tried his opsonin treatment on little Prince Henry with complete success.
By the time this preface is in print the kaleidoscope may have had another shake; and opsonin may have gone the way of phlogiston at the hands of its own restless discoverer.
They appear to be more or less specific, a separate opsonin being necessary for phagocytosis of each species of bacteria.
To measure the amount of any particular opsonin in the blood Wright has devised a method which involves many ingenious and delicate technical procedures.
In the method for demonstrating opsonin about to be described, a comparison is made between the opsonic "power" of the pooled serum and the specific serum.
The three most important of the antibodies referred to which can be demonstrated with a certain amount of facility are agglutinin, opsonin and bacteriolysin; and the methods of testing for these bodies will now be considered.
The word opsonin is derived from a Greek root which means "to prepare the feast.
The opsonin either adds something to the bacterium which makes it tasty to the white corpuscle, or removes (or neutralises) something which previously made it distasteful.
Then the physician goes a step farther, and administers the appropriate opsonin by injecting it under the skin, again simply increasing the resistance of his patient by a perfectly natural method.
