The effect of adrenal function and flumethasone (FM, a synthetic glucocorticoid) on induction of puberty in crossbred gilts raised in confinement was examined in two experiments. In Exp. 1, gilts were adrenalectomized (Adx) or subjected to sham adrenalectomy (Sham) between 140 and 160 d of age. Twenty days later indwelling jugular catheters were implanted in Adx, Sham and another group of intact gilts designated as Controls, and the gilts were moved from confinement to outdoor pens and checked daily for estrus with a mature boar. Fewer (P less than .05) Adx (1/11) than Sham (9/14) gilts showed estrus and ovulated by 205 d of age. Response of Control gilts (6/14) was not different from the other groups. Although Adx gilts received 40 mg cortisone acetate and 10 mg deoxycorticosterone acetate daily throughout the experiment, mean plasma glucocorticoids were lower (P less than .05) in Adx (24 +/- 4.7 ng/ml) than in either Sham (47 +/- 8.1 ng/ml) or Control (44 +/- 6.1 ng/ml) gilts. Experiment 2 was conducted to determine whether FM given to Adx gilts immediately after surgery could have inhibited estrus and ovulation. Intact gilts received a total of 27.5 (FM1) or 17.5 (FM2) mg FM over 4 d between 150 and 160 d of age before relocation and boar exposure 20 d later. Control gilts received no injections. Nine of 13 FM-treated but none of the Control gilts showed estrus. It is concluded from these results that the adrenal glands may facilitate the onset of puberty in gilts through increases in glucocorticoid production, but that this is not required for puberty to occur.
Summary
A thermostabile bactericidal substance has been demonstrated to occur in human serum, particularly during fever; its effect was particularly seen in tests with a strain of meningococcus highly susceptible to the bactericidal substances of serum. The thermostabile bactericidal substance was found besides in some few other cases, namely, in tests with two different strains of men-ingococci, with three strains of Pfeiffer bacilli and with almost the same frequency as with the highly susceptible meningococcus strain in tests with a strain of Diplococcus crassus.
The thermostabile bactericidal substance is found to occur primarily in the serum of febrile patients; in tests with a highly susceptible meningococcus strain the thermostabile substance was demonstrable in 85 per cent of the febrile patients examined, one fourth showing a very marked action. The thermostabile substance could not be demonstrated in 90 per cent of the non-febrile patients.
Injection of sulfosin seems to stimulate the organism to produce a thermostabile bactericidal substance.
Increase of the bactericidal substances in active serum was found in tests against a diplococcus strain, a phenomenon which is probably elicited only under quite special conditions.
The thermostabile bactericidal substance seems to keep well in vitro.
The thermostabile bactericidal substance possesses an enzymic property, since it did not become fixed in absorption tests with the meningococcus strain which was killed by it.
Pneumonia 200 2 0 m 9 0" Peritonitis local. 200 0" Pleuritis 200 0 d Pneumonia 133 r r >> d 133 0 0 0 0 9 0 Q Pneumonia 133 d 133 7/11 0" 1 d Pneumonia 8 Osteomyelitis 133 r r > d 133 0 r denotes bactericidal reaction; 0 = no bactericidal reaction.
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