Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T05:44:28.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Standardization of the Wassermann Reaction for the Use of Mental Hospital Laboratories

Report and Recommendations of the Pathology, Bacteriology and Bio-Chemistry Sub-Committee

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Extract

For many years psychiatrists have appreciated the clinical value of the Wassermann reaction, not only in diseases of the central nervous system, but in somatic infection in the psychotic and the mentally defective. As a diagnostic test for syphilis, reliance has been placed on this reaction out of proportion, perhaps, to its relative efficiency; sometimes without a full appreciation of the difficulties which the pathologist has to face in rendering the test as accurate as possible, and also of the fact that the results must be interpreted both on clinical and serological grounds. Adding to the difficulties of co-operation between the two groups of observers, there has been the fact that, owing to increased efficiency in anti-syphilitic treatment during the past twenty years, the strength of the reactions to be found serologically has become progressively less marked. Thus, it is inevitable that many of the methods employed hitherto, although at one time satisfactory and reliable, cannot now completely fulfil all the criteria of a reliable test so essential to accurate diagnosis and the control of modern methods of treatment. Further, and of even more importance from the point of view of research and of the necessity of making strict comparison of the results of one laboratory with another, it has been ascertained that very little uniformity of method exists. This lack of cohesion not only reflects upon the efficiency of the routine work and research in mental hospitals, but isolates them as a whole from the Ministry of Health venereal disease centres, in that in very many instances the methods employed could not be strictly compared. From these facts alone it will be seen that sooner or later the time was bound to come when all the requirements of a standard method should be investigated and, from among many excellent techniques, the difficult task be faced of choosing one or a combination of tests that would serve the needs of the clinician and serologist working in the domain of psychiatry. At the time of the inception of the Pathological, Bacteriological and Bio-Chemical Sub-Committee there was current amongst its members a desire that one of the aims of this section of the Research and Clinical Committee should be to investigate this difficult and highly technical problem of standardization. Thus, after the preliminary work of the Sub-Committee on various schemes of research had been initiated, I was asked at the meeting on February 13, 1929, to prepare a memorandum on a standard method of performing the Wassermann test. This report was entirely of a preliminary nature, and intended only to form a basis of discussion. While this was in course of preparation a questionnaire was sent to those mental hospitals undertaking serological work, with a view to ascertaining and contrasting in some detail the methods employed by each. In order that all interests in the various branches of psychiatry should be fully represented, it was unanimously decided that all members of the General Paralysis, Mental Deficiency, and Encephalitis Sub-Committees should be invited to co-operate. Thus, on May 3, 1929, a conjoint meeting was held at Horton Mental Hospital, Epsom, under the chairmanship of Dr. J. R. Lord. In the memorandum I dealt mainly with the work of the three laboratory conferences held under the auspices of the League of Nations in November, 1922, November, 1923, and May, 1928, the latter, held at Copenhagen, being by far the most important in its results and influence upon the researches into the serology of syphilis.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1931 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography

1 Investigations on the Sero-diagnosis of Syphilis. Report of the Technical Laboratory Conference (Copenhagen, November 19 to December 3, 1923), League of Nations Health Organization (Constable & Co., Ltd.).Google Scholar
2 Report of the Second Laboratory Conference on the Sero-diagnosis of Syphilis (Copenhagen, May 21 to June 4, 1928), League of Nations Health Organization (Constable & Co., Ltd.).Google Scholar
3 The Wassermann Test. Medical Research Committee Special Report Series, No. 14 (H.M. Stationery Office).Google Scholar
4 The Wassermann Test: Technical Details of No. 1 Method, Medical Research Council (modified by Wyler, E. J.), Special Report Series, No. 129.Google Scholar
5 Memorandum on the Wassermann Reaction in Mental Hospital Practice, by Mann, S. A., D.Sc., F.I.C., and F. Partner (P. S. King & Son, Ltd.).Google Scholar
6 Serum Diagnosis of Syphilis by Precipitation. By Kahn, R. L., Sc.D. Price $3.00. Williams & Wilkins Co., xii + 237.Google Scholar

References

The Hinton Glycerol Cholesterol Reaction.

1 Hinton, W. A., and Stuart, G. O., “The Hinton Glycerol Cholesterol Agglutination Reaction,” Journ. of Lab. and Clin. Med., April, 1929, xiv, 7, p. 621.Google Scholar
2 Neymann, C. A., and Gager, L. T., “A New Method for Making Wassermann Antigens from Normal Heart Tissue,” Journ. Immunol., 1917, ii, p. 575.Google Scholar
3 Kahn, R. L., Serum Diagnosis of Syphilis by Precipitation. Williams & Wilkins Co., Baltimore, 1925.Google Scholar
4 Erlandsen, A., “Untersuchungen über die lecithinartigen Substanzen des Myocardiums und der quergestreiften Muskeln,” Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 1907, li, pp. 71155.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.