THE PRODUCTION OF AMYLOID DISEASE AND CHRONIC NEPHRITIS IN RABBITS BY REPEATED INTRAVENOUS INJECTIONS OF LIVING COLON BACILLI.

The repeated intravenous injection of rabbits with living Bacillus coli communior over long periods has resulted in the formation of amyloid deposits in the spleen, liver, and kidneys. Suppurative lesions were not present in most cases and therefore not a factor in its production. The results have been constant in that amyloid was found in all rabbits, eight in number, which were injected over a period of 88 days or more. Eight rabbits showed amyloid in the spleen, six of these in the kidneys also, and three in the liver. The kidneys of these eight rabbits also showed as a result of the injections a subacute and chronic glomerulitis, parenchymatous degeneration, some interstitial infiltration with round cells, and a slight cellular proliferation of connective tissue, thus resembling the chronic parenchymatous nephritis of man which is so commonly associated with amyloid disease.