Abstract
At the 1932 meeting of the National Tuberculosis Association, we reported favorable results from the treatment of tuberculous guinea pigs with viosterol and ascending doses of tuberculin. 1 In the present work a similar though more extensive investigation was performed upon albino rabbits. In addition to the viosterol-treated animals, certain groups were treated with artificial sunlight irradiation to determine whether the irradiation might not have an effect similar to that produced by viosterol.
The rabbits were inoculated subcutaneously with a lethal dose of bovine tubercle bacilli (0.01 mg. of a culture, 0.001 mg. of which was known to produce tuberculosis in the rabbit) and were divided into 6 groups of 8 animals each. The respective groups received treatment as follows: I, viosterol; II, viosterol plus tuberculin; III, ultraviolet irradiation and maize oil; IV, ultraviolet irradiation and maize oil plus tuberculin; V (tuberculin controls), tuberculin and maize oil; VI (untreated controls), maize oil. The amounts of maize oil given to the groups that did not receive viosterol were in every case equal to those given to groups I and II as a medium for the viosterol.
Treatment was started 21 days after the inoculation. The original 10,000 X viosterol solution(Link missing) was diluted with maize oil to contain 1.46 mg. in 0.05 cc.; this amount per pound of body weight was given weekly by intramuscular injection. Tuberculin (bovine, O.T.) was given subcutaneously simultaneously with the viosterol in weekly ascending doses from 0.00001 mg. to 18.5 mg. for 34 consecutive weeks. Irradiation was given every second day. For the source of light a carbon arc lamp drawing 66 amperes with 48.5 volts across the arc was used. The intensity of radiation of visible and ultraviolet light from the arc was equal to 80 watts per square meter at a distance of one meter with 38% of this coming from rays shorter than 4000 Ångstrom units. The initial dose for the irradiation was 2 minutes at a distance of one meter from the arc.
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