Weil and Braun in 1909 further suggested that these auto-antibodies exacerbate the disease, and that the brain lesions in tertiary syphilis (paresis) may represent an autoimmune disease directed against neural antigens.
Later the antigen involved in the Wassermann reaction has been identified as a lipid named cardiolipin.
The nature of origin of Wasserman antibodies has been proposed by several hypotheses. The one proposed by Eagle and Fleishman supported an early concept of Wassermann of a host response to a lipidal component of T. pallidum.
The second, advanced by Weil and Braun in 1908 but experimentally confirmed by Sachs, Klopstock and Weil in 1925, suggested an autoimmune reaction to components of host tissue.
The Wassermann antibody
