Process and device for the detection and quantification of agglutinates

Device for the detection and quantification, in recipients of which at least the bottoms are transparent, of agglutinates capable of being formed, under the action of at least one liquid reagent, by particles in suspension in doses of liquids to be tested contained in said recipients, said device comprising:

• (a) an arrangement of a plurality of photosensitive elements observing by transparency the bottoms of said recipients containing the possible agglutinates so as to form n.times.m points of observation distributed over a rectangular or square surface occupying the greater part of the surface of the bottom of each recipient;
• (b) comparison means of which one input is connected to said photosensitive elements, of which the other input receives a signal representative of a light transmission threshold and of which the output is connected to counting means counting the points of measurement of which the transparency is less than said threshold;
• (c) peak value detection means connected to said photosensitive elements;
• (d) summation means receiving the output signal from said peak value detection means and summing the peak values of the signals emitted by said photosensitive elements when the response of the latter corresponds to a transmission greater than said threshold;
• (e) means for memorizing the sum furnished by said summation means;
• (f) means for counting the points of measurements whose transparency is greater than said threshold;
• and
• (g) a microprocessor connected to said counting means and to said memorizing means in order to calculate, for each recipient, the mean value of the sum recorded in said memorizing means, to compare this calculated mean value with the corresponding mean value of a reference sample and to determine that there is agglutination when, at the same time, this calculated mean value is higher than that of said reference sample and when there exists points of measurement whose transparency is less than said threshold and, on the other hand, that there is no agglutination when, at the same time, this calculated mean value is not greater than that of said reference sample and when there exists no points of measurement whose transmission is less than said threshold.