HYPOTHERMIA AND BACTERIAL TOXINS 



Survival 



61- 76- 91- 121- 151- 181- 241- 



minutes = 60 75 90 120 150 180 240 480 



00 



Figure 6. Survival times of 51 pretreated but normothermic mice after Intravenous 

 Injection of one lethal dose of staphylocoocal toxin, followed by one or (bottom right In 

 the columns) four neutralizing units of antitoxin after different Intervals. 



Common to all groups was the observation that increasing 

 toxin- antitoxin interval diminished the ability of antitoxin to prolong 

 the survival. The larger dose of antitoxin gave more absolute 

 survivals and at longer toxin- antitoxin intervals increased sur- 

 vival times. 



As to the influence of hypothermia on the time relationships 

 described in the Figures 6 and 7, the work in this area is in 

 its beginning stages. Only one of the experiments has contained 

 five animals made hypothermic about five hours prior to the 

 injection of toxin. They all represent a toxin- antitoxin interval 

 of two minutes. The average survival time of these mice was 

 284 minutes, and the result is marked as a single point in the 

 figure. This is situated well above the curve for normothermic 

 mice given the same antitoxin amount, one neutralizing dose, 

 but there is no statistical difference between this average and 

 that of the normothermic mice in the same experiment (t = 1.7 ; 

 dF 8; P > 0.1), 



143 



