Reactivity of the skin of the newborn infant

The skin of the full term newborn infant reacts to various dilutions of histamine phosphate with erythema but no wheal formation, as contrasted to the skin of older children where, with the same technic (scratch), whealing was frequent. The skin of the full term newborn infant is capable of fixing reagin locally. Similar fixation of antibody (and skin reactions with tendency to smaller wheals) was shown in prematurely born infants of varying ages and weight. The skin sites passively sensitized with serum containing reagin to egg showed erythema and whealing following the feeding of whole raw egg to both newborn infants and older children. This suggests that proteins or products of protein digestion, of sufficient complexity to be antigenic, are absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract of both newborn infants and older children. The above experiments support the view that the skin of the newborn infant is capable of demonstrating an antigen antibody reaction and that such reaction may be in the nature of erythema or whealing.