Chronic Lead Poisoning in Guinea Pigs. 5 1 



It is interesting to observe in these animals a condition so en- 

 tirely analogous to what has been described in man as polysero- 

 sitis, or a polyorrhomenitis by Italian investigators, of which 

 Curschmann's Zuckergussleber and Pick's pericarditic pseudocir- 

 rhosis are only special manifestations. The relations of these con- 

 ditions in man to chronic lead poisoning and to chronic anemia 

 remains to be studied. 



37 (733) 



Chronic lead poisoning in guinea pigs. Its relation to chronic 



nephritis. 



By W. Ophuls. 



[From the Pathological Laboratory of Stanford University.] 



During the last years I have been repeating the experiments of 

 Charcot and Gombault 1 on chronic lead poisoning in guinea pigs. 

 Twenty-eight guinea pigs were given sublethal doses of carbonate 

 of lead for periods ranging from one month to three years and ten 

 months. Fourteen of these experiments lasted over one year. 



The lesions in the kidneys were much less striking than one 

 would expect from the report of Charcot and Gombault. In all 

 cases there was a limited necrosis and desquamation of the epi- 

 thelium with marked evidences of regeneration especially in the 

 ascending limbs of the loops of Henle. In some cases the epi- 

 thelium in places was heavily pigmented. Occasionally there were 

 seen a few glomeruli with slightly thickened capsules. There were 

 only two of the twenty-eight experiments in which more advanced 

 lesions were discovered in the kidneys. In one case (69) in which 

 the guinea pig had received over thirty grams of carbonate of lead 

 in three years the kidneys were actually granular and the cortex 

 distinctly narrow. The lesions in this case consisted in collapse 

 of tubules over large areas with marked development of fibrous 

 tissue between them. There were many casts. The glomeruli 

 showed marked fibrous thickening of the capsules and cystic 

 dilatation. The other guinea pig (51) which received about four 

 grams of carbonate of lead in twenty months showed similar con- 



1 Charcot et Gombault, "Note relative a l'etude anatomique de la nephrite 

 saturnine experimentale," Arch, de Phys., 1881, 2 3., VIII, 126. 



