Abstract
BIOLOGICAL assays may be divided into two main classes. In the first, which we may call Type I, the 'potency' of the test material, as compared with that of a standard preparation, refers only to its relative ability to produce certain effects in the experimental animals, no assumptions being made as to the substance or substances responsible for the effects. An example is the testing of extracts from plants for their insecticidal power. In Type II, however—and this must now be the larger class—the response of the experimental animals is used to estimate the content, in units of some kind (which may be either of an ad hoc nature or actual units of weight) per unit weight of test material, of a single substance producing the response in question. Into this category fall, for example, most assays of vitamins.
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References
Wood, E. C., NATURE, 153, 84 (1944).
Gridgeman, N. T., Biochem. J., 37, 127 (1943).
Finney, D. J., NATURE, 153, 284 (1944).
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WOOD, E. Mathematics of Biological Assay. Nature 153, 681–682 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/153681a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/153681a0
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