In the past it has been presumed by some immunologists that the
fixed tissues are autonomous in production of specific
antibodies. Recent investigations indicate, however, that
antibody production is further dependent on unknown hormonal or
neurologic integrations. Scores of unsuccessful attempts have
been made to produce specific antibodies by adding antigens to
tissue cultures. In spite of the few allegedly successful
results the general consensus is that explants from the spleen,
lungs and bone marrow of embryonic or adult laboratory animals
are incapable of synthesizing precipitins, agglutinins,
hemolysins, antitoxins or complement-deviating antibodies.1
Admitting these failures, recent investigators have modified the
in vitro technic. They have injected antigens intravenously into
experimental animals and after arbitrary intervals made tissue
cultures from antigenladen spleen or bone marrow. Landsteiner
and Parker2 of the Rockefeller Institute, for example, found
that antigen-laden splenic fragments take