Experimental Bronchopneumonia and Empyema. 33 



Absracts of the Communications, 

 Pacific Coast Branch. 

 Twenty-sixth meeting. 



Berkeley, California, October 13, IQ20. 



21 (1603) 



Experimental bronchopneumonia and empyema in the rabbit. 



By F. P. Gay and Bernice Rhodes. 



[From the Department of Pathology and Bacteriology, University of 



California.] 



Gay and Stone have described an experimental streptococcus 

 empyema in rabbits which presents advantages for the study of 

 preventive and curative measures against this condition. It 

 resembles in all details human streptococcus empyema in that it 

 is a process of infection by extension involving not only the side 

 of the chest inoculated but the pericardium and the other pleural 

 cavity. The infection apparently becomes septicemic only in 

 its terminal stages. This experimental syndrome as produced by 

 inoculating into the pleural cavity of rabbits differs from the 

 human process only in its method of origin which in man is by an 

 extension of the streptococcus down the respiratory tract with 

 more or less involvement of the lungs in the form of a broncho- 

 pneumonia. 



Our early attempts to produce streptococcus pneumonia in 

 rabbits were unsuccessful owing, we believe, to the fact that we 

 employed a culture of a streptococcus that had not been passed 

 through the pleura of rabbits as is the one we now uniformly 

 employ to produce empyema by intrapleural injections. And 

 secondly, in our earlier attempts the culture was injected between 

 the cartilages of the trachea by means of a hypodermic needle. 

 We have now succeeded in producing bronchopneumonia and 

 empyema by means of our passage streptococcus culture, grown 

 in blood broth and injected into the trachea through a catheter 

 in the manner described by Winternitz and Hirschfelder, followed 

 by forcible insufflation with air. This method of injection is 



