Ueber Komplementbindungsversuche bei infektiösen und postinfektiösen Erkrankungen, (Tabes dorsalis etc.) sowie bei Nährstoffen¹)

Abstract

Ueber Komplementbindungsversuche bei infektiösen und postinfektiösen Erkrankungen, (Tabes dorsalis etc.) sowie bei Nährstoffen').

The Collective Construction of a Scientific Fact: A Re-examination of the Early Period of the Wassermann Reaction (1906–1912)

“…In this "serendipitous" way, Citron discovered the important fact that intense anti-syphilitic therapy has an influence on the outcome of antibody determination. Incidentally, this influence might also partly explain the disappointingly low figures for antibody determination reported by Wassermann, Neisser, and Bruck in their second publication, for as Citron pointed out in July 1907: "the material [= the patients] of the Breslau dermatological clinic, which underlies the first statistics, must for the most part have been subjected to a specific treatment" (Citron 1907a(Citron , 1169. The early figure of 19% positive outcomes in a total of 257 confirmed syphilitic cases thus happens to refer to a non-representative sample of patients that had been intensely treated with mercury (as a dermatologist Neisser was well-known for his strong commitment to a vigorous mercurial treatment).…”

“…One of the controls on which Wassermann still insisted during this discussion was the control test of syphilitic material with a standard extract from a normal (non-syphilitic) foetus, which given the point at issue might be considered as begging the question. At about the same time, Wassermann's former collaborator Julius Citron dismissed Eduard Weil's finding of a complement fixation effected by non-syphilitic (sarcoma) extract and syphilitic sera as lacking any evidentiary force "due to the absence of the most important controls" (Citron 1907a(Citron , 1169. In the ensuing polemics, Weil pointed out that which particular controls are necessary depend on the claims you want to make.…”