Immunochemistry Arrhenius

Arrhenius became director of the Nobel Institute of Physical Chemistry in Stockholm in 1905, a post he held until a few months before his death. He married Maria Johansson, his second wife, and had one son and two daughters. The following year he also had time to publish three books Theories of Chemistry, Immunochemistry, and Worlds in the Making. 

Around the turn of the century it was shown that Abs are not only produced against microorganisms and their toxins, but also by other substances such as milk, protein or plant-derived toxins. Paul Ehrhch was the first to carry out quantitative studies on Ag-Ab interactions. The great interest in this field led to the first book on immunochemistry, published by Svante Arrhenius in 1907/10) Karl Landsteiner also belongs to the pioneers in immunochemistry. He systematically used small artificial molecules, which he called haptens, coupled to a carrier molecule for immunization. In 1923 Heidelberger and co-workers found polysaccharides to be antigenic as well. 

In one of his lectures on immunochemistry at the University of CaUfornia in the summer of 1904 Svante Arrhenius said (1) that Ehrlich and other investigators, because of incomplete knowledge of the phenomenon of chemical equilibrium, had been led to invent artificial hypotheses in order to explain their observations in the field of immunology. Since that time, and especially during the last few years, workers in this field have made greater and greater use of the concepts and methods of physical chemistry, and in consequence many previously puzzling observations have been reasonably interpreted. 

Arrhenius later became interested in immunochemistry, postulating a chemical equilibrium between toxin and antitoxin, whilst Ehrlich supposed the combination was complete. Nernst, who supported Ehrlich, said the law of mass action was not applicable, and that slow colloidal coagulation and adsorption had been mistaken for equilibrium phenomena. His sharp criticism of Arrhenius led to their estrangement. Arrhenius was also interested in cosmic physics, and emphasised the importance of radiation pressure. His last paper was on thermophilic bacteria and the radiation pressure of the sun. ... 

Arrhenius and Madsen, Z. phys. Chem., 1903, sdiv, 7 Arrhenius, Z. phys. Chem., 1903, xlvi, 415 Madsen, Brit. Med. y., 1904, II, 567-74 Craw, Z. phys. Chem., 1905, lii, 569 Arrhenius, Immunochemistry, New York, 1907 id., Quantitative Lotos in Biological Chemistry, 1915 Hiorvald Madsen was Director of the Seruni Institute, Copenhagen. 

---