A New Rapid Slide Test for Infectious Mononucleosis

Abstract

In 1911 Forssman¹discovered that immunization of rabbits with sheep erythrocytes caused the production of an antibody which was toxic to guinea pigs and that guinea pig kidney contained an antigen which reacted with this rabbit antibody. The antigen of this system has come to be known as the Forssman antigen. Further studies^2-4into the nature of the Forssman antibody revealed that it was but one of a family of heterophil antibodies, which have been characterized by Davidsohn and Walker⁵as "antibodies that have the ability to react with antigens that are apparently entirely unrelated to those which stimulated their production." In 1930, Davidsohn⁶showed that normal control subjects possess antisheep agglutinins of a heterophilic nature. It has since been shown that these heterophil antibodies found in control sera may or may not behave as classical Forssman antibodies.⁷Paul and Bunnell⁸and Bunnell⁹