Immunoglobulin Synthesis by the Human Fetus

Abstract

A mere decade ago one of the principal dogmas of immunology held that fetal and newborn animals were in a privative and pristine state, incapable of immunologic response. This was called the immunologic "null" period and was made experimentally respectable by demonstrations purporting to show that the interior milieu of the newborn animal was inhospitable to cells previously primed to form antibody and subsequently inoculated into newborn rabbits. The heretical experiments of Smith at Gainesville clearly showed that one-day-old human infants are capable of responding to typhoid vaccine. Furthermore, two observations were made that were to be of subsequent import. . . .