In this mildly controversial article, Dochez and Avery presented their theory of antiblastic immunity--the resistance to pneumococci as a result of the inhibition of particular pneumococcal enzymes by the serum from an infected person or animal--that promised to shed considerable light on the mechanisms by which parasitic bacteria establish themselves in animal tissue. Subsequent research conducted by others at the Rockefeller Institute determined that although antipneumococcal serum could retard the growth of pneumococci, it was not due to inhibition of enzymatic activity but the result of agglutination, which had few practical applications, effectively disproving Avery and Dochez's theory of antiblastic immunity.
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