Wassermann's test

The Wasserman reaction is an express method of diagnosing syphilis. The technique is named after its author, German immunologist August Wasserman. The peculiarity of the test is the simplicity of its formulation. The technique involves adding cardiolipin from bovine heart to the patient's blood. If the patient has syphilis, then a specific reaction with cardiolipin occurs, since antibodies are produced in the blood of the subject (immunity fights infection) to the pathogen – pale treponema.

Antibodies are produced in response to an antigen - a foreign protein - entering the body. Antigens can be specific, that is, peculiar only to a specific microorganism, and non-specific, found in many organisms. Such nonspecific antigens include cardiolipin, which is present in pale treponema and in the bovine heart.

The nonspecificity of the antigen is the main disadvantage of the Wasserman reaction - relatively high false positive rate due to the frequent occurrence of cardiolipin in nature. A prime example is antiphospholipid syndrome, a disease characterized by circulating antibodies to cardiolipin in the blood. Therefore, the patient's blood will react to the ingestion of bovine heart cardiolipin. A more reliable test in terms of syphilis diagnosis is the Total antibodies to Treponema Pallidum.