The Journal of Experimental Medicine

Ingier, Alexandra

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.525pmid: 19867888

1. Pronounced cases of Barlow's disease may be produced in the fetus as early as ten to fifteen days after the commencement of dieting pregnant guinea pigs with oats and water. There are wide individual variations. The scorbutic changes in the skeleton are greatest in the earlier embryonic stages. The fetuses of that period, with practically no exceptions, die and show marked traces of impeded growth. 2. Fetuses from the later period of pregnancy are born alive, and apparently fully developed, with comparatively slight changes in the osseous system. 3. Even a short extension of the period of extra-uterine dieting on milk from scorbutic mothers and later on oats and water is sufficient to change the latent scurvy into a highly pronounced case. 4. The fetus cannot be kept alive longer than the adult animal, about twenty-eight days, either by intra-uterine dieting alone or by combined intra- and extra-uterine dieting. 5. The mothers show signs of disease at an early period, and are more severely attacked than non-pregnant animals. Death also occurs comparatively often in the first period of gestation. Footnotes Submitted: 4 February 1915

Noguchi, Hideyo

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.539pmid: 19867889

Vaccine virus freed from all associated bacteria by means of suitable disinfecting agents can be propagated in a pure state in the testicles of rabbits and bulls. The virus cultivated in this manner is not only devoid of all bacteria, but appears capable of indefinite transfer from one animal to another. Sixty passages in rabbits of a pure strain have been made within one year. Several transfers from testicle to testicle are required to bring about accurate adaptation of the virus to the testicular parenchyma, so that continued propagation in this way can be certainly secured. During the first transfers from testicle to testicle the activity of the virus may be less than the original skin specimen from which the pure strain was derived; but as the transfers proceed the activity rises until, when the adaptation is complete, the activity of the testicular equals that of the skin strain. The multiplication of the virus within the testicle is maximum on the fourth or fifth day after inoculation; the quantity of virus remains about stationary until the eighth day, when diminution begins. At the expiration of five weeks no more virus could be detected in the testicle. The vaccinal processes in the skin, cornea, and testicle of rabbits are practically identical whether the virus employed for the inoculation has been the original skin strain or the pure testicular strain; and the skin lesions produced in the calf with the two strains are also identical. In conformity with the finding mentioned in the last paragraph it has been found that human beings react to the pure testicular strain of vaccine virus in an entirely typical manner. In the case both of original vaccination and revaccination the vaccinal effects cannot be distinguished from those arising from uncomplicated skin virus. Pure strains of testicular virus are readily produced, and once secured they may be propagated in a pure state by the method described in rabbits or bulls without difficulty and with economy. The pure strains thus obtained should supply an ideal form of virus for employment in the vaccination of human beings. Footnotes Submitted: 15 March 1915

Funk, Casimir

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.571pmid: 19867890

By feeding to rats the tissue of the mouse chondroma they are rendered more suitable as hosts for the growth. Using this method rats have been inoculated successfully with the mouse tumor and it has been transferred to three successive series of these animals. Footnotes Submitted: 15 February 1915

Funk, Casimir

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.574pmid: 19867891

Arsenic and arsenious acids, cacodylic acid, atoxyl, and neosalvarsan fail to influence markedly the growth of the Rous chicken sarcoma. Footnotes Submitted: 15 February 1915

Zinsser, Hans; Hopkins, Joseph Gardner

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.576pmid: 19867892

It has been shown by our experiments that the serum of rabbits treated with emulsions of Treponema pallidum contains agglutinating substances. Normal rabbit serum also possesses agglutinating power for this organism, but, as in the case of normal bacterial agglutinins, to an extent very much inferior to that possessed by the sera of immunized animals. Normal human sera will agglutinate similar pallidum emulsions, as will the sera of certain syphilitic patients with positive Wassermann reactions. Whether or not there is a quantitative difference of diagnostic value between the sera of normal human beings and those of syphilitics remains to be seen. The sera of rabbits immunized with strain A agglutinate Noguchi's strain 9 in dilutions as high as 1 to 500. We regard as the most important result of these experiments the demonstration of definite antibodies in the circulation of animals treated with dead emulsions of Treponema pallidum . Since it is our belief that the agglutinating effect is due to an antibody essentially the same as that which produces bactericidal, precipitating, and opsonic effects, i. e ., that there is probably one type of antibody only, we believe that the demonstration of agglutinins establishes the fact that in syphilis as in bacterial diseases the host responds by the formation of antibodies or sensitizers specific for the treponema. Spirocheticidal experiments with these sera, both in vitro and in vivo , are in progress. Footnotes Submitted: 20 February 1915

Lawson, Mary R.

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.584pmid: 19867893

1. The malarial parasite is extracellular throughout its entire life cycle; that is, when it is not free in the blood serum, it is attached to the external surface of the red corpuscle. 2. Adult parasites follow the same procedure in attaching themselves to the outer surface of the red corpuscles as do the young parasites. 3. Adult parasites are most frequently seen attached to surface corpuscular mounds. 4. Corpuscular mounds projecting at the periphery of the red corpuscles and encircled by the pseudopodia of adult parasites, are proof positive of the extracellular relation of the adult parasite to the red corpuscle. 5. Adult parasites attached to peripheral corpuscular mounds are only found in appreciable numbers when the red corpuscles are not badly damaged, so that the mounds show more or less hemoglobin content. 6. The nuclei or protoplasm of adult parasites extending beyond the periphery of the red corpuscles is additional evidence of the extracellular relation of the parasites to the red corpuscle. Footnotes Submitted: 29 March 1915

Cohn, Alfred E.; Fraser, Francis R.; Jamieson, Ross A.

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.593pmid: 19867894

It has been shown in this investigation that digitalis, administered orally to patients, can modify the T wave in the electrocardiogram. When the T wave in the initial curve is directed upward, the first change noticed is a lowering, and the final change is an inversion of the wave. It is not only the wave itself, but that portion of the curve between the end of R and the end of T which is involved. Instances in which the initial T waves have other than upright forms are described and their behavior under the influence of digitalis has been indicated. This influence of digitalis on the T wave may be detected in thirty-six to forty-eight hours after the administration of digitalis has commenced; it may persist as long as twenty-two days after the administration has been stopped. Instances where it persisted only five days have been encountered. The unexpected length of duration of the sign probably explains why a second treatment with digitalis requires a smaller amount of the drug to produce the same effect, than the first. Footnotes Submitted: 7 April 1915

Kirkbride, Mary Butler

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.605pmid: 19867895

While preliminary treatment with culture filtrates or dead cells of the extremely virulent strain A gave rise to varying degrees of immunity, the exudative lung lesions developing after tracheal injection with live organisms of the same virulent strain were not strikingly increased in any group or series of these rabbits. Despite carefully graduated dosage in the preliminary treatment, none of the animals developed symptoms of a definitely anaphylactic nature. In similar experiments following sensitization with the attenuated avirulent culture AA, tracheal injection of virulent or avirulent organisms of the same strain failed to incite any definite increase in the exudative lung reaction. In none of the rabbits were symptoms resembling anaphylaxis noted. The immunity which was induced by the larger sensitizing doses of culture filtrates of the strain in the virulent state was lacking when similar doses of the culture filtrates of organisms in the non-virulent state were used. Extensive lesions developed in both sensitized and unsensitized rabbits when the strain used in the tracheal injection was one apparently combining moderate virulence with exceptional toxicity, indicating that the exudative lung reaction was one of adjustment rather than of acquired hypersusceptibility. When, in the experiments, small amounts of sera from normal rabbits, or from animals immunized to culture filtrates, were added to the culture before tracheal injection, an increased fibrinous lung reaction was frequently found. The present study would seem to give some ground for the view that while in pneumonia a hypersensitive condition probably takes some part in the inception of the infection, the subsequent development of the diffuse exudative reaction in the lung is not directly due to an acquired hypersusceptibility, but to intrinsic qualities possessed by the pneumococcus itself. This study was carried on in the Department of Bacteriology of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, New York, and later, through the courtesy of Dr. Charles Norris, in the Bellevue Hospital Laboratories. It was completed in the Laboratories of the New York State Department of Health at Albany. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Augustus Wadsworth for his advice and criticism. Footnotes Submitted: 5 November 1914

Funkhouser, Edgar Bright

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.617pmid: 19867896

In the study of the human cortex it seems well to follow the same primary divisions for the entire cortex, while in certain areas some layers may assume certain modifications; viz ., in the area striata it seems clearer to retain the sixth layer ground type, of which the fourth is subdivided into three secondary layers. The visual cortex, on account of its relation to the act of seeing, is an especially interesting field for study. About the calcarine fissure one can readily see with the naked eye a stripe of white fibers lying in the gray substance, called stria of Gennari or of Vicq-d' Azyr. This layer is considered by Brodmann in the second subdivision of the fourth primary layer. The two most characteristic types of the cortex are the giant pyramid type, called area gigantopyramidalis, and the calcarine type, called area striata. The higher types of mammals afford excellent material for comparison. Minkowski's experimental study of the dog indicates that the clinical, anatomical visual sphere is covered with the cytoarchitectonic sphere; for lasting visual trouble can be caused only by extirpation of the area striata. The subcortical visual center in mammals undergoes secondary degeneration through destruction of the area striata, and therefore depends on the cortex. Also certain parts of the corpus geniculatum externum have an exact projection over certain areas of the cortex.

Larson, W. P.; Bell, E. T.

doi: 10.1084/jem.21.6.629pmid: 19867897

Some strains of Bacillus proteus obtained from human lesions are pathogenic for rabbits, rats, and guinea pigs. There is good evidence that these strains are also pathogenic for man. All cultures obtained from sources other than human infections were non-pathogenic for the laboratory animals. A non-pathogenic culture may be made pathogenic by the use of aggressins or by inoculation into the anterior chamber of the eye. Proteus cultures lose their virulence rapidly when grown on artificial media. The lesions produced in animals are either simple abscesses, proliferative lesions, or a mixed exudative and proliferative lesion. The proliferative lesions consist mainly of epithelioid cells apparently of connective tissue origin. No giant-cells of the Langhans type are present. The histological type of the lesion does not depend upon the strain employed. Neither does it bear any relation to the clinical severity of the case. The ability to produce the characteristic lesions has no necessary connection with the toxicity of the bacteria. The proteus bacteria probably play a more important part in human pathology than is generally believed. Footnotes Submitted: 18 February 1915