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Experimental Diphtheria in the Albino Rat

From the DeLamar Institute of Public Health and the Department of Bacteriology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York

Abstract

1. Albino rats are highly but not completely resistant to infection with diphtheria bacilli, irrespective of whether the gravis or the mitis types are used.

2. Intravenous or intraäbdominal injection of large doses of diphtheria bacilli produced no effect. The animals survived, the bacilli died out swiftly. Subcutaneous injection, however, resulted in the formation of transitory abscesses in which living diphtheria bacilli persisted not longer than one week after injection. A generalization of the infection was indicated by the survival of the organisms in the spleen. No deaths occurred in these animals. Intracerebral injection of diphtheria bacilli proved lethal within one to seven days. The brain contained numerous diphtheria bacilli but the blood and spleen were sterile.

3. Administration of large amounts of diphtherial antitoxin failed to prevent the development of abscesses following subcutaneous infection, or death following intracerebral infection.

4. Serial passage of a gravis strain of C. diphtheriae through rats did not change the cultural, biochemical or biological characteristics of the organism.