PATHOGENESIS OF BACILLARY DYSENTERY IN LABORATORY ANIMALS
Abstract
An attempt was made to study the bacillary dysentery infection in small laboratory animals in the hope that the findings obtained under these artificial conditions might give some hints on the disease process as it occurs in nature. While normal guinea pigs exhibit little or no reaction after oral administration of virulent dysentery bacilli followed by an intraperitoneal injection of opium, animals which have been deprived of food for 4 days usually die after being fed the bacteria, providing a drug such as opium is injected. It is this experimental model, the infected starved guinea pig, which is characterized the findings obtained from it are then related to the natural infection. Histologic examination of the major organs of starved guinea pigs revealed that the only consistent change brought about by the starvation procedure was a centrilobular fatty degeneration of the liver. This striking change led to the use of a common chemical, hepatotoxin, in an attempt to reproduce the same pathological changes. It was found that a subcutaneous injection of a sublethal dose of carbon tetrachloride could substitute for the starvation period. If a small dose of carbon tetrachloride was given, 24-48 hr prior to oral challenge with dysentery bacilli, the pattern of death and pathological changes in the intestinal tract were the same as those seen in animals which had been starved.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1964
- Accession Number
- AD0613877
Entities
People
- E. H. Labrec
- H. Schneider
- Samuel B. Formal
Organizations
- Walter Reed Army Institute of Research