Procedure for drying leptospiral antibody on sand and sugar for serological studies in leptospirosis

A simple technique is described for drying sera on washed, dry sand or ordinary sugar cubes for the sero-diagnosis of leptospirosis. The results are shown to be very similar to those obtained with fluid sera or sera dried on filter paper discs. Sera adsorbed on sand or absorbed in sugar eliminated some of the problems associated with sera dried on paper. This method is suitable for use in the field and is expected to be of value in epizootiological studies where contamination and chemical denaturation of fluid serum samples held without refrigeration is a problem.