Gynecolog?, Morrisunia City Hospital, New York City.-4ntibodie.s against spermatozoa have been known to impair sperm functions( 1-3). Such antibodies. however, have not previously been found under natural conditions and, particularly, not in man.* This is a report of 2 men whose spermatozoa agglutinate in the ejaculate. Antibodies were found in their seminal plasma and blood serum. These cases were encountered by the writer in the past year and a half during the routine clinical investigation of approximately 100 sterile couples.Clinical observations. Case 1. White male, age 30. -American Jewish descent. Family and personal medical history negative. A brother has one child. Blood group .4B, Rh,,fD) positive: no history of blood transfusions or injections. Married 10 years. Wife unable to conceive although in good health, her sterility investigation negative and no contraception used. Her blood group is B, Rho(D) positive. She promptly became pregnant fdlowing artificial insemination of a donor's semen and is now in her last trimester. Case 2. White male, age 36. American Jewish descent. Family and personal medical history negatise. -4 brother has 2 children and a sister has one child. Blood group R , Rh,,(D) negative. ariti-Rho( D ) negative. S o history of blood transfusions or injections. Married 3 years. Wife unable to conceive although in good health. her sterility investigation nega---. ._ --. -*Kibrick ti at. (FPrtil. and Steril. 1952, v3, 435)reported agglutination of human spermatozoa by some normal sera of rabbits, guinea pigs and man in low dilutions. They used a macroscopic tube agglutination technic with gelatin. XO significance was attributed to this observation which was considered non-specific. It was rare in dilutions over 1:4 in contrast to the titers up to 1:256000 obtained with potent anti-human-sperm rabbit's sera. Because oi the difierent technics employed, it is not possible to compare the findings of these workers with the observations reported here. Spermatozoa were not agglutinated by normal human sera with the method used in this study. tive and no contraception used. Her blood group is 0, R h o ( D ) positive. In both cases the semen was examined many times and consistently showed normal values for the ejaculate volume, sperm count, viscosity, initial motility, morphology and non-spermatozoal cellular content. However, these specimens always showed marked clumping of the spermatozoa and early loss of motility. It was therefore decided to study this phenomenon in detail.Methods. All semen specimens were obtained by masturbation after a period of sexual abstinence of not less than 48 hours. The ejaculates were coIlected directly into clean, dry glass containers and, on several occasions, in 2 separate fractions (split-ejaculate). Sperm agglutination was detected by microscopic examination of a wet film prepared by laying a cover-slip over a drop of semen on a clean glass slide. The presence of agglutinins in the blood serum and seminal plasma was determined by mixing a drop of the respect...
