Abstract
It has been shown 1 , 2 that raw liver and liver extract are distinctly beneficial to dogs suffering from acute amebic enteritis. On the other hand, ventriculin was found to be consistently harmful to the host. Furthermore, one of us (E.C.F.) discovered several years ago that dogs which were resistant to amebic infection on a balanced diet, could usually be infected when they were fed canned salmon. Our present inquiry is directed to the nature of the complex relations produced by these 3 foodstuffs on the wall of the large intestine, when the host has amebic enteritis. This report outlines our findings up to the present time and offers no explanations for the results obtained.
Twenty-six healthy young dogs have been used in the study. None were naturally infected with amebae. All were inoculated intracecally 3 with the same human strain of Endamoeba histolytica. All were suffering from acute amebiasis of a few days standing when the tests were made. Fresh pig's liver, ventriculin (furnished by Parke, Davis and Co.) and commercial canned pink salmon (grade B) were the foodstuffs employed. Only one animal died; the remainder were sacrificed.
In the liver series 150 gm. of unchopped raw liver were fed to one animal daily. Clinical improvement began about the ninth day, and on sacrifice 13 days later only a few small shallow amebic lesions were found in the cecum and rectum. In contrast, when only 60 gm. of finely chopped liver in liver juice were fed to the host, improvement was noted on the fifth day, and on sacrifice 3 days later only a few shallow lesions were seen in the rectum. In 4 animals both the liquid and solid fractions of finely chopped liver were introduced into the large intestine.
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