Summary
The behaviour of the three immunoglobulins (gammaglobulin, or IgG, beta 2A globulin, or IgA and beta 2M globulin, or IgM) has been examined, using paper electrophoresis and immunological methods, in the blood serum of 43 infants suffering from interstitial plasma cellular pneumonia. The level of the immunoglobulins was generally found t o be decreased in those cases, where the symptoms of the disease were mild or of medium intensity, and appeared in infants between 4‐8 weeks of age, i.e. in the period of the physiological hypogammaglobulinemia.
If, however, the disease caused grave symptoms and was manifested in older infants, an increase of beta 2M immunoglobulin was found to be characteristic; in some cases, the elevation of all the three immunoglobulins occurred.
Our observations suggest that in interstitial plasma cellular pneumonia of infants, antibodies of the beta 2M‐type must play an important part, but that there is no direct correlation between the common antibody deficiency syndromes and the infantile interstitial plasmacellular pneumonia occurring in this country.