Abstract
Summary
Relatively large sublethal doses of the endotoxin-containing extract of Shigella paradysenterice (Flexner) were injected intra-peritoneally into rabbits at the 2, 6-7, 11-12, 15-16, 19-21, and 25-26-day stages of pregnancy. Pregnancy at the 2-day stage was interrupted following such injection, possibly because of a low viability of the rabbit blastocyst to the marked hyperthermia which develops following the injection. The failure of the endotoxin to interrupt pregnancy at the 6-7-day stage is discussed. At stages between the 11th and 26th day, pregnancy was interrupted, accompanied often by vaginal bleeding and abortion which resulted presumably from the hemorrhagic action of the endotoxin on fragile capillaries of the decidua-placental tissues.
This decidua-placental hemorrhage in rabbits is construed to be an action physiologically analogous to the hemorrhage induced by the endotoxins of gram-negative bacteria in implanted mouse tumors.
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