MEDICINE

L. GREENBERG AND M, Y, COOPER (Ganad, med, Ass. J., July 23, 1960) state that attempts to produce an effective prophylactic against staphylococcal infections have been in progress for almost 80 years, but that none has proved particularly successful. The approach to the problem has been invariably based on procedures which have been found suecessful against other bacterial diseases, and has been hampered by lack of knowledge concerning the fundamentals of the pathogenesis of staphylococcal disease. Vaccines consisting of killed suspensions of whole bacteria, antigenic fractions of StaphylocoCCU8 aureus and staphylococcal toxoids have been prepared, but their continued use has been an indication of the failure of other therapeutic measures and not of success of active immunization. The authors have developed a polyvalent somatic (intracellular) antigen by combining the enzyme-lysed fractions of a number of vaccines prepared from different phage types of Staph. aureus. They describe the procedures used and report the results obtained in animal experiments. They state that this antigen will protect experimental animals against challenge with both lethal and skininfecting doses of 36 test cultures, representing all the important human phage types of Staph. aureue. The results in animals have been so encouraging that preliminary trials in human subjects have been started. The authors state that their studies show that antibodies to intracellular antigens play a greater part than antibodies to either the cellular or the extracellular antigens in the prevention of staphylococcal disease, and that in every instance somatic antigen staphylococcal vaccines gave better protection than their homologous bacterial vaccines. Toxins and toxoids played no part in the somatic antigen vaccine used. Polysterene latex antigens were prepared from five separate strains of different phage types of Staph. aureus, and agglutination tests indicated that all of the strains have a common agglutinating antigen.