EXPERIMENTAL PNEUMONIA IN GUINEA PIGS

Abstract

1. Anaerobic autolysates of pneumococci, prepared according to the method described, are highly toxic for guinea pigs when injected intratracheally in dosage of 0.2 cc. Death occurs either within a few hours (36 per cent) or within 3 days. In the early deaths there is intense hemorrhagic edema of the lungs with beginning inflammatory reaction; in animals surviving for 18 hours or longer extensive areas of pneumonia are produced. 2. The intratracheal injection of virulent living pneumococci is followed by transient slight lesion with recovery, or by later death from septicemia without pneumonic lesions. 3. The addition of a sublethal dose of toxic autolysate to living pneumococci alters the reaction of the animal, so that there develops extensive pneumonia associated with unrestrained multiplication of the organism.