Transmission of Protein Hypersensitiveness from Mother to Offspring

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Abstract
It was first demonstrated by Rosenau and Anderson (2, 3) in 1906, that a state of hypersensitiveness may be transmitted from a mother guinea pig to her offspring. Within the next few years, this discovery was corroborated by Gay and Southard (4), Otto (5), Lewis (6), Schenck (7), and Wells (8). The work of these intestigators has given us the following facts. This state can be transmitted. Hypersensitiveness to horse serum may exist independently of immunity to diphtheria toxin in offspring born of mothers injected with diphtheria toxin-antitoxin. Mother guinea pigs fed oats during gestation can transmit oat sensitization to their offspring, and this transferred state of hypersensitivity is of a passive nature. Because we have demonstrated in our previous studies (I, II, III) that colostrum and milk are of negligible importance in the transfer of substances from a guinea pig mother to her offspring, and that the placenta in this species is permeable, thus permitting the interchange of heterologous substances, we can regard this passive sensitization as a result of placental transfer.

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