SENSITIZATION AND DESENSITIZATION OF RABBITS TO HETEROPLASTIC TRANSPLANTS OF THYROID TISSUE

In man isotransplants transferred directly without conditioning the donor, the recipient or the transplant seldom if ever survive permanently. Many such grafts take temporarily, for periods of three to five weeks, and then disintegrate and disappear. This phenomenon has been attributed to chemical incompatibility, and Holman¹ has presented evidence that it is based on the development of sensitization of the recipient to the foreign tissue. He reported the case of a child who received skin grafts from his mother on two occasions with a few days intervening. Both belonged to the same blood group. Two weeks after the second grafting, not only did the new epithelium which had spread from the grafts and had nearly covered the surface of the granulations melt away leaving only the original grafts, but symptoms of a generalized allergic reaction developed. These symptoms, fever, tachycardia, generalized exfoliative dermatitis or eczema and melena, persisted until