A Toxic Factor Associated with the Agent of Lymphogranuloma Venereum

Abstract

The production of a toxic factor during the development of the agent of lymphogranuloma venereum has been suspected for the following reasons: (A) The disease can occur in man in severe generalized form 1 with marked headache, chills, and other symptoms suggesting toxemia. (B) The cause of death of the chick embryo after yolk-sac infection is most readily explicable as due to a toxin, since the agent does not invade the embryo to any great extent 2 and disturbance of nutrition would appear unimportant since weight of embryos dead of the infection does not differ from that of uninfected embryos of the same age. (C) In mice, convulsive deaths occurring some 30 hours after intracerebral inoculation suggest toxemia and are not wholly accounted for by the lesions formed in the meninges. Bearing on this problem Gildermeister and Haagen have demonstrated a “toxin” from rickettsia grown in the yolk-sac of the developing embryo. 3

A toxic product has been demonstrated in the heavily infected yolk-sac of moribund embryos. Little is present in less heavily infected yolk-sacs, i.e., those from embryos which would not die for another 12 or 24 hours, and it disappears after death if the eggs remain in the incubator or more slowly if at room temperature. Yolk-sacs are shaken in their own yolk and fluids to make a 1/5 or 1/10 suspension and further dilutions are prepared in broth, normal yolk, or normal serum (human, rabbit, or calf). Even under favorable conditions the toxic factor is not present in large amounts, and it has not been possible to demonstrate it in dilutions of infected yolk-sac higher than 1/40 or of infected yolk higher than 1/2 (Table I).