BLOOD POTASSIUM AND HISTAMINE INTOXICATION IN RELATION TO ADRENOCORTICAL FUNCTION IN RATS

Abstract

About 70% of rats with adrenocortical transplants were killed by doses of K salts (25 mg. K+/100 g. body wt.) which were well tolerated by normal rats, but were at least twice the size of doses invariably fatal for adrenalectomized rats. After intraperit. injns. of histamine (5 or 10 mg./100 g. body wt.) the total blood K and the serum K of normal rats may have risen slightly although the observed changes were within the range of normal and exptl. variation. In the rats with transplants, there were increases in serum K, and in total K which were greater than could be accounted for by the accompanying hemo-conc. It is suggested that although the increased susceptibility of the rat with transplants to histamine is funda-mentally related to a disturbance in handling body fluids because of some degree of functional inefficiency of the grafted cortical tissue, the elevated K may be a contributory factor which aggravates the circulatory disturbances.