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Non-Specific Factors in Resistance

III. Capacity for Retarding Bacterial Proliferation

From the Institute of Pathology of the Western Pennsylvania Hospital, Pittsburgh

Abstract

The capacity for retarding the proliferation of type I pneumococci penetrating to the circulating blood is augmented during fever, through a largely thermal effect; during recovery from sub-fatal type I pneumococcal infection, as a result of the degree of immunity developed; and following administration of sulfanilamide, possibly through (1) oxidation of absorbed sulfanilamide to a derivative capable of inactivating catalase and (2) production of sufficient catalase inhibition to permit accumulation of hydrogen peroxide, within the pneumococcus, to levels incompatible with rapid growth.

Capacity for retarding pneumococcal proliferation can be estimated, in vitro, for the rabbit, and expressed in terms of a C-R index. The C-R index. together with the warming-time, gives information predicting capacity for surviving intradermal infection with type I pneumococcus.

Combined augmentation of capacity for retarding bacterial proliferation and capacity for sustaining function through administration of sulfanilamide and vitamin C to rabbits, with warming-times in the range associated with impaired capacity for resistance, increases the percentage of survival following intradermal, type I pneumococcal infection from a level of 0 to a level of 67—a degree of improvement demonstrating, clearly, the necessity for determining and enhancing the status of the physiologic defense, as well as the status of the immune defense, in working out procedures for combating infection.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				A. LOCKE, E. R. MAIN, and R. R. MELLON CARBONIC ANHYDRASE INACTIVATION AS THE SOURCE OF SULFANILAMIDE "ACIDOSIS" Science, January 17, 1941; 93(2403): 66 - 67. [PDF]