[Data to substantiate the early immunological diagnosis of dysentery].

The interaction of the whole blood from patients with dysentery and gastrointestinal diseases of non-dysenteric etiology, with the causative agents of dysentery, Sh. sonnei and Sh. flexneri, and saprophytic, staphylococci labeled with radioactive isotopes was studied in vitro. In dysentery an increase in the capacity of the blood for Shigella fixation was observed from the beginning of the disease. During the 1st week of the disease this reaction was strictly specific and accompanied by a decrease in the fixation of staphylococci, but later the reaction became relatively specific. An increase in Shigella fixation occurred considerably earlier than immune antibody formation, as revealed by the indirect hemagglutination test. This research substantiates the possibility of an earlier immunological diagnosis of dysentery as compared with the serological methods.