Abstract
During the past nine years, studies in this laboratory were concerned with the type of liver injury induced in dogs by uranium nitrate and other chemical substances, with the mechanism of repair to the liver lobules and the influence of secondary intoxications by these substances and by chloroform on the regenerated liver cells. A total of 161 dogs of ages varying from 4 months to 14 years have been used. In 73 dogs phenoltetrachlorphthalein has been employed according to the technique of Rosenthal 1 as an index of liver function. The dye was used in normal dogs before the intoxications, during the initial acute liver injury and at the end of a 4-week period, allowed for liver repair and during the secondary intoxication by uranium or when chloroform was used as the hepatoxic agent following a liver repair from uranium. Before such periods of functional study the animals were lightly anesthetized by ether, an incision made below the right costal margin, and liver tissue removed from one or more areas of the organ by means of a nasal cutting forceps or punch. Such tissue was fixed in corrosive-acetic, and in 10% formaline, and sections stained with Scharlach R. for lipoid material.
The uranium intoxications with the resulting liver injury have been induced by the subcutaneous injection of 2 to 4 mg. of uranium nitrate per kilo. The liver injury from uranium is diffuse, involving the cells of the liver lobules as a whole. In a number of animals this injury was not as marked immediately around the central vein of the lobules as it was in their central and peripheral portions. This variation from the diffuse character of the lobular injury may have some influence on the type of epithelial regeneration in the lobules.
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