Early in 1940'we published a report (1) on antibody formation in cases of lobar pneumonia treated with sulfapyridine. In nineteen treated cases of pneumococcus pneumonia repeatedly studied during the acute phase of the disease and during convalescence, an excess of type-specific antibody was only demonstrated in the serum of four. In the past it has often been shown that spontaneous recovery from lobar pneumonia is associated, in the great majority of instances, with the appearance of an excess of antibody in the patient's serum, and this phenomenon has been generally regarded as an essential part of the mechanism of spontaneously occurring crisis. Our failure to demonstrate antibodies in fifteen out of nineteen cases suggested to us that sulfapyridine had supplanted, at least to some degree, this portion of the immune process. We did not believe that antibody-production ceased to exist in treated cases, but rather that it proceeded at a lower rate, probably because the stimulus to antibody formation was lessened as a result of the action of the drug on the invading organism. Our technique for the demonstration of excess antibody throughout the series studied was the precipitin reaction with type-specific polysaccharide.While this paper was in press, two similar studies were published. Wood and Long (2) reported the appearance of mouse-protective antibodies in the serum of ten out of eleven treated patients recovering from lobar pneumonia but pointed out that in seven of these cases antibody appeared after the time of " essential recovery." Subsequently, Finland and his associates (3) reported a large series of cases of pneumococcus pneumonia in which mouse-protective antibodies and agglutinins were sought. They concluded as a result of these studies that "the antibody response of patients with pneumococcic pneumonia treated with sulfapyridine, as far as could be determined, was comparable in every respect to that resulting from spontaneous recovery." It will be observed that these results were not in accord with our findings. None of these investigators, however, used the same technique as we did-to wit, the precipitin reaction. It is our belief that the precipitin reaction, as Heidelberger and Kendall (4) have pointed out, is probably less sensitive than the other methods, but that it is more clear-cut and more specific. Unfortunately, at the time our paper was written, we had no control series of our own in which untreated patients were studied by the same technique, although such was present in the literature (5). As will be observed, the results which we obtained in patients treated with sulfathiazole, as opposed to sulfapyridine, using precisely the same technique, were almost diametrically different, and therefore constitute a very satisfactory control of the method.Before sulfathiazole was introduced, eleven additional sulfapyridine-treated cases were studied in the same manner as those reported in the original paper. Including one doubtful reaction, only four of these showed precipitins during convalesc...
317found in our normal animals). Although iiot abundant, sperm were found in many tubules of the testes of all 5 rabbits. They were more plentiful in the cured animals than in those dying with dystrophy. Aside from a slight sloughing of germ cells in the testes of rabbit No. 218, which died with dystrophy, and in the testes of rabbit No. 227, which was cured of the disease, the germinal epithelium of all animals was normal. This confirms and extends our recent finding' that widespread muscle lesions occur in vitamin Edeficient rabbits in the absence of testicular degeneration.In this experiment the dystrophic rabbits developed no symptoms other than those referable to changes in the skeletal muscles. Furthermore, the remarkable stimulus given to muscle repair by a-tocopherol therapy was not lost even after 6 attacks of the disease.Couclzcsiom. As many as 6 successive attacks of nutritional muscular dystrophy have been produced and cured in rabbits. Continued a-tocopherol therapy following the last attack resulted in the complete repair of hyalinization and necrosis of the thigh muscIes. Test icular degeneration was not observed.
Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia Cniversity, niid tljc Presbytr ricrii Bospital, N e w Pork City.Among tlie problems of fat nietaholisni so-called simple obesity has long been of interest to physicians. One point of view taken with regard to this condition considers it as merely another example of the operation of the law of conservation of energy. This attitude is, of course, unassailable, since it must lx true that there is a disparity between expenditure of energy and food intake, if fat is to be stored in tlie subcutaneous tissues. At the same time, however, the phenomenon of obesity would appear to contain relationships of a biological nature which are less well defined. In the human subject, for exaniple, obesity occurs with great frequency following certain disturbances of eiidocrinc function, such as nieiiopause, castration, or pituitary disease. No doubt in each instance there is a displacement of the equilibrium between caloric intake and output due to lowering of the total metabolism. But that this is the whole story is not so clear. The rate of deposition or utilization of depot fat and the type of niechanisni calfecl upon for its ultimate disposal both may be influeliced by factors that are as yet poorly understood. The clinical association of obesity with abnornial endocrine function lends interest to this report of an observation which seems to indicate that even in iiorrnal animals there is a relation between sex and the rate of disappearance of an oil injected parenterally.In tlie course of an experinient designed to study the effect of o-amino-azotoluol 011 the liver, the dye was dissolved in corn-oil ( "Mazola") and in jccted subcutaneously into the backs of mice.The mice were of the closely inbred Bagg albino (C) strain and were all about 4 nioiiths old when first treated. They were 60 in number, 30 niales and 30 virgin females, and were maintained on a diet of stock pellets wliich provides all of the necessary vitamins. As far as is known, they were normal aninials. Each mouse received regularly each week for several months 0.
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