A comparative study of liver changes produced by inoculating pregnant rats with Salmonella dublin or with its endotoxin.

Rats were inoculated with viable Salmonella cublin organisms or a crude Salm. dublin endotoxin at the 14th day of pregnancy. They were killed at intervals up to 96 h after inoculation and the pathogenesis of the liver lesions compared. The immediate effects on the liver of both inoculations were the same but there were differences in the later stages. In the endotoxin inoculated rats the initial liver lesions regressed but in the bacteria inoculated rats fat accumulated in the periportal and mid-lobular areas as the initial lesions regressed, and there was nuclear enlargement and mitosis. These lesions may represent the response of the liver to a continued bacteriaemia and endotoxaemia originating from the uterine lumen.