Studies on the microscopic slide-agglutination test for Q fever.

The author has devised a micro-agglutination test for the sero-diagnosis of Q fever. Preliminary studies had already indicated that it was highly sensitive, and this has now been confirmed. Using the sera of sheep infected with Q fever, the microscopic slide-agglutination test was found to be approximately 10 times as sensitive as the capillary agglutination test and the macroscopic tube-agglutination test, and more than 20 times as sensitive as the complement-fixation test. The sensitivity of the test can be still further enhanced by the addition of inactivated bovine serum ("auxi-agglutination") or by the addition of bovine serum and complement ("conglutination"), but for routine diagnosis or epidemiological studies, the test is sufficiently sensitive without introducing these complications.