The discovery of C-reactive protein in the laboratory of O. T. Avery at Rockefeller University in 1929-30 was the first specific obser vation of the acute phase plasma protein response (Tillett and Francis 1930). This was one of three contributions of fundamental importance which emerged from that laboratory, the other two being the recognition that polysaccharides could act as antigens and that DNA transmits genetic information. In the course of charac terization of pneumococcal carbohydrate antigens, a somatic poly saccharide common to all Rand S forms of pneumococci was identified and...