The Effect of Alcohol on the Development of Acquired Immunity to Hymenolepis in Mice

Abstract

Expts. were carried out to determine the influence of 35% alcohol on reinfection of mice with H. nana var. fraterna. When daily treatment with the drug was not begun until several days after initial infection, it had no demonstrable effect on reinfection several weeks later. Thus the action of the immune mechanism stimulated before alcoholization was not interfered with in degree to be measured by the infection method employed. In other expts. in which the drug treatment was given daily for a few weeks before the first infection, the results varied with the time interval before reinfection. When this period was one week or 72 hrs., reinfection was not-demonstrated. This probably meant that the alcoholic mice had recovered from debilitation. Reinfection was demonstrated where only 48 or 24 hrs. elapsed between infections. In both cases the alcoholic mice showed percentages of cysticercoid development many times greater than those of controls. This indicated, therefore, that alcohol treatment caused a delayed response to antigenic stimulation, but the mechanism for this is as yet unknown.