Effect of Intratracheal Inoculation on Chronicity of Lung Abscess.

Abstract

It has been amply demonstrated experimentally that the type of organism infecting a lung abscess is important in determining the healing time. Thus, when Staphylococcus aureus alone is introduced into the lung parenchyma of dogs, abscesses are produced that heal within 4 weeks 1 ; when a mixture of the common pyogenic bacteria is used, the abscesses heal more slowly 2 ; the spirillum and fusiform bacillus of Vincent give rise to abscesses that last 2 to 3 months 3 ; and Tubercle bacillus abscesses may require a much longer time to heal. 4

The purpose of the following experiments is to determine whether a lung abscess infected with an organism known to produce only acute lesions may be rendered slow to heal by intratracheal insufflation of organisms which are capable of originating chronic lung lesions. Dogs were used, and lung abscesses were obtained by liberating infected emboli into the venous stream (Cutler, 5 Holman 6 ). Intratracheal insufflation was done with the animal deeply morphinized to control the cough reflex, and thinned sputum was used, obtained freshly from patients with chronic lung suppuration.