Abstract
Summary
A modification of an apparatus for quantitative airborne infection as devised by Wells is described. Its use has indicated that, while the number of tubercles generated in the lung is to a certain degree proportional to the number of droplet nuclei of tubercle bacilli inhaled, there is no constant ratio between the number of tubercle bacilli arrested in the lung and the number of primary tubercles generated therein, even when the rabbits breathe the same infected air simultaneously.
By exposing vaccinated highly inbred, genetically resistant rabbits to the inhalation of known small numbers of virulent bovine type tubercle bacilli it was possible to reproduce various types and phases of human localized ulcerative pulmonary tuberculosis of the adult or reinfection type. These phases ranged from complete resistance to the infection to varying degrees of bronchogenic dissemination from excavated foci to one or both lungs. There was little or no lymphogenous or hematogenous dissemination from the pulmonary portal of entry in these rabbits.
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