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On the Specific Substances in the Alcohol Extract of the Bacillus of Tuberculosis

From the von Ruck Research Laboratory for Tuberculosis, Asheville, North Carolina

Abstract

In a table are given the amounts extracted with the successive use of different lipoids solvents from 31 grams of tubercle bacilli and the effectiveness of the extracts as antigens in the complement fixation test.

With the separation of the ether and alcohol soluble and acetone insoluble fraction of the extracts and in several cases with washing them with water, we obtained from all extracts examined (5 ether, 1 ethyl and 1 methyl alcohol extract) preparations which were active as antigens very closely in the same amount, 0.00020 to 0.00030 mgm. being the antigen unit. We did not succeed with continued purification in enhancing more the potency of the preparation.

The chemical examination of the purified products, as far as could be made, has shown them to be closely similar to each other. Carbohydrates are present in large amounts in the non-purified alcohol extracts and from 12 to 26 per cent of them were found in the preparations obtained both from the alcohol and ether extracts in different phases of the purification process. The amount of carbohydrates in the most effective preparations and their eventual connection with the specific properties of the preparations has not yet been examined. The purified product has a chemical composition widely different from the well studied phosphatides.

The very high potency of the preparations, the close uniformity of the potency and chemical composition of the preparations obtained from different extracts, constitute a certain probability that our preparations consist in a large part of the specific substance.