IN 1832, Elliotson described a patient with heart disease and "cold fits" who passed bloody urine "whenever the east wind blew."1 Half a century later, Rosenbach described patients in whom hemoglob...

Biologic activity of cold-reacting autoantibodies (first of two parts).

Publisher Summary Invasion by parasitic organisms, including forms too small to come within the conventional ambit of parasitology, is a fact of life for most animals and plants, and may result in disease and tissue damage When these changes do occur their origin and consequences may be self-evident, such as in the anaemia that follows the blood loss caused by hookworms or cattle ticks, but the pathogenesis of parasitic disease is much harder to understand Some host species need many parasites to initiate illness and tissue damage and others very few Tissues around parasites may be less damaged than others anatomically distant This chapter provides possible origins of tissue damage in parasitic diseases Several examples of the direct effects are presented The susceptibility of different parasites to oxygen toxicity is discussed; these processes depend, as with host tissues, on their antioxidant defenses The studies exhibit that the host brings much of the pathology of malaria and babesiosis on itself when it tries to kill the parasites by free radical-initiated mechanisms but does so too enthusiastically and without a close enough focus on the target The host suffers accordingly

Oxygen-derived free radicals in the pathogenesis of parasitic disease.

Hypohaptoglobinaemia as an epidemiological and clinical indicator for malaria. Results of two studies in a hyperendemic region in West Africa.

Malarial antibodies and autoantibodies to heart and other tissues in the immigrant and indigenous peoples of uganda

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the immunological aspects of malaria infection. The chapter is particularly concerned with specific acquired immunity to malaria and includes a discussion only of innate and nonspecific resistance. The chapter discusses immunity in malaria, an old subject that contains considerable current interest. New methods for the study of the relevant antibodies and a new appreciation for a role for cell-mediated immunity are responsible for this development. The very diverse contributions to this subject present unusual difficulties for a reviewer. However, a clear and interesting summary of the subject has emerged and is of considerable value as a reference for all immunologists. In adults, malaria sometimes occurs as epidemics but more often it is insidious in its effect; it reduces the vigor of communities and by its continued presence causes a retardation of social and economic growth. The effect of malaria on a community is accentuated by the occurrence of other endemic diseases such as schistosomiasis and hookworm. Suggestions are made in recent years to revise the nomenclature of malaria parasites and to institute several new genera.

Immunological aspects of malaria infection.

IT WAS noted during collection of blood for transfusion in Rabaul, New Britain (an island in Melanesia) that a high proportion of whole blood specimens stored at 4\" C. showed erythrocyte agglutination. Examination of the donor population showed that the great majority of the specimens came from people of the Kuanua (Tolai) hguistic group. This finding was brought to our attention by Dr. A. Crezy of the Department of Public Health during a recent survey of the serum proteins of the peoples of New Guinea and New Britain (Curtain, Gajdusek, Kidson, Gorman, Champness and Rodrigue, 1964a). This paper describes some serological and chemical investigations of cold haemagglutinins in the sera of Tolai people and compares these with the distribution and properties of cold haemagglutinins in sera from several other population groups living in different regions of New Guinea and New Britain. In addition to a high incidence we found both heterogeneity and unusual specificity of cold haemagglutinins in these tropical populations.

Cold haemagglutinins: unusual incidence in melanesian populations.

This paper reports haptoglobin and transferrin typping of 2687 serum specimens from Melanesians of New Guinea and New Britain. The specimens were obtained from members of 27 different cultural and linguistic groups residing in over 100 different villages in six different administrative districts. They were divided among the Districts as follows: New Britain 821, Sepik 623, Morobe 349, Eastern Highlands 613, Southern Highlands 222, and Western Highlands 59.



In addition serum haptoglobin levels, serum iron levels and total serum iron binding capacity have been determined on these subjects. In the field hemoglobin determinations, blood smears for examination for malaria parasite rates, and spleen palpations were done on a proportion of the subjects, mostly children under ten years whose sera have been examined in this study. These field and laboratory results are correlated with the transferrin and haptoglobin gene frequency findings.

D. C. Gajdusek

Papers

Cold haemagglutinins: unusual incidence in melanesian populations.

Haptoglobins and transferrins in Melanesia: Relation to hemoglobin, serum haptoglobin and serum iron levels in population groups in Papua—New Guinea