Incidence of rheumatic fever in relation to immunologic reactivity.

an altered immunologic reactivity, different of that of normal controls (Creger, Choy, and Rantz, 1951; Miller, Kibrick, and Massell, 1953; Quinn, Seastone, and Dickie, 1953; Kuhns and McCarty, 1954), but the results of their experiments proved mostly negative or inconclusive. A convincing proof of this altered reactivity seems to have been furnished only after attention had been focused on incomplete antibody, as shown, for example, in our previously reported experiments applying single non-streptococcal immunizing impulses (Wagner and Rejholec, 1955; Padovcovi, Rejholec, Suda, Mal', and Wagner, 1956). The assumption of increased immunologic reactivity appearing thus corroborated, the next problem we faced was whether this particular hyperreactivity was primary or secondary in character. In the latter case it would be a sequela of the past rheumatic disease; in the former, viz. if it had been present in the subject before the onset of rheumatic fever, it might be inferred that it had a bearing on the pathogenic mechanism of this disease. In order to elucidate this question we adopted the following procedure. The immunologic reactivity of a group of young healthy subjects as homogeneous