Evidence that ‘Normal Incomplete Cold Antibody’ is not a Gamma-globulin

Abstract

DACIE¹ discovered that if normal human red cells were left at 0° C with their own fresh serum and afterwards washed in warm saline, they could be agglutinated by anti-human globulin serum, and he postulated that serum normally contained an incomplete antibody reacting at 0° C with human red cells. Later, Dacie, Crookston and Christenson² produced evidence that the positive anti-globulin reactions were not due to the direct detection of the antibody, but to a reaction with complement which was evidently bound to the cells at 0° C and was not removed by the subsequent washing.