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Blood sera from patients suffering from castorbean-allergy will sensitize the skin of the Philippine crab-eating monkey, Macaca irus.The sensitized sites react to castorbean proteins, producing wheals and/or blanching characteristic of similar passive transfer tests (P.-K. tests) in nonallergic human volunteers. Skin reactions in the monkey are more easily interpreted when the colloidal dye Evans Blue is injected intravenously 5 or 10 minutes prior to challenge with the suspected allergenic material. The passive transfer of human serum antibodies into the skin of Macaca irusappears to be useful as a method which may be applied in lieu of the Prausnitz-Küstner test (on human volunteers) to avoid the grave risk of infection with serum hepatitis.

To the Editor.—We agree with the suggestion of Donaldson et al1 that intrinsic as well as extrinsic coagulation factors should be tested for when screening patients with liver disease for surgery or biopsy. We have recently had three incidents where low levels of factor IX would have been missed in patients with liver disease if only the Quick prothrombin time had been taken.The first case concerned a 55-year-old woman with lymphosarcoma and chronic, active hepatitis. Results of liver-function tests included the following values: bilirubin, 4.8 mg/100 ml; serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT), 254 units/ml; serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase (SGPT), 86 units/ml; and alkaline phosphatase, 44.2 King-Armstrong units/ ml. There was no familial or past history of abnormal bleeding. Results of coagulation studies included normal Quick prothrombin times on three occasions: 100% (12 seconds), 100% (12.4 seconds), and 88% (14.2 seconds); abnormal partial thromboplastin time, 65 seconds (normal,

DIRECT skin-scratch tests upon allergic individuals are sometimes dangerous, and are inconvenient and time-consuming for both the patient and allergist. The classical Prausnitz–Küstner test (P-K test)1is subject to the same objections and, in addition, subjects the volunteer serum recipient to the risk of infection with serum hepatitis. These considerations lead us to the use of an alternative method for indirect testing in our studies on the purification of castor allergens.