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An Experimental Investigation of an Immunologic Mechanism as the Cause of Glomerulonephritis¹

From the Renal Division, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia Hospital for Contagious Diseases, Philadelphia

Abstract

A brief analysis was made of the various concepts which have been advanced in explanation of the mechanism by which acute glomerulonephritis develops. Attention was directed especially to the hypothesis that the disease develops as the result of an antigen-antibody reaction, and particularly to the recent concept that the antigen concerned may be the product of an action of the streptococcus or some of its products upon the proteins of the kidney.

Experiments were devised to test the validity of this concept. Antibodies to antigens prepared from human renal tissue were not found by complement-fixation or precipitative methods in sera obtained from 78 patients with scarlet fever. Attempts to demonstrate a circulating antigen in the early stage of scarlet fever by an immunologic reaction with sera obtained at a later period when antibody, if present, would presumably be in excess, were likewise unsuccessful. Reasons are given to show that the negative results obtained, while failing to give support to the concept, cannot be considered to exclude the possibility of such a mechanism.

Footnotes

¹ These studies were supported by the George deB. Keim Memorial Fund.