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opsonic index

noun

  1. the ratio of the number of bacteria destroyed by phagocytes in the blood of a test patient to the number destroyed in the blood of a normal individual
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Example Sentences

It is present to a certain extent in normal serum, but can be greatly increased by the process of immunization; and the “opsonic index,” or relation between the number of organisms taken up by leucocytes when treated with the serum of a healthy person or “control,” and with the serum of a person affected with any bacterial disease and under treatment by immunization, is regarded by some as representing the degree of immunity produced.

He goes minutely into the consideration of immunity, opsonic index, reproduction, sterilization, antiseptics, biochemic tests, culture-media, isolation of cultures, the manufacture of the various toxins, antitoxins, tuberculins, and vaccines that have proved of diagnostic or therapeutic value.

This fraction, expressed as a percentage of unity = the opsonic index.

A large number of favourable results obtained by such treatment controlled by the observation of the opsonic index have already been published, but it would be unwise at present to offer a decided opinion as to the ultimate value of the method.

The effect of the injection of a small quantity of vaccine is usually to produce an increase in the opsonic index within a few days.

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