HOT BATHS IN EXPERIMENTAL PRIMARY SYPHILIS OF RABBITS AND IN TRYPANOSOMIASIS OF RATS

Abstract

About six years ago Schamberg and Rule¹ reported that the immersion of rabbits in hot water at 45 C. (113 F.) for from fifteen to twenty minutes three days after intratesticular inoculation with Spirochaeta pallida and daily thereafter for from eleven to seventeen days resulted in the complete sterilization of the animals, since syphilomas did not develop in the testicles and the inoculation of fresh animals with emulsions of the inguinal lymphatic glands failed to produce syphilitic infection. Later² it was observed in a single rabbit that, while these baths caused the healing of a secondary lesion, cure was not complete since transplantation of glands into a fresh animal resulted in infection. In these experiments the whole animal was immersed in the hot water, with the exception of the head. It occurred to one of us (J. A. K.) that the results may have been