Abstract
A paper which we read before this society in the spring of 1910 showed that “old” tuberculin or the filtered fluid from a culture of B. tuberculosis caused a marked arterial depression in the dog when injected into the femoral vein. This same tuberculin if heated above 105° lost this power of depression.
We have recently found that commercial adrenalin preparations and saline extracts of the experimental dog's freshly removed adrenal gland prevented this depression when mixed with tuberculin and the mixture injected intravenously.
Samples of tuberculin, which caused marked drops in the blood pressure, when mixed with a sufficient amount of an emulsion of the dog's own adrenals and injected intravenously, caused no fall in the blood pressure, thus showing an antagonistic action between tuberculin and the adrenals. The intravenous injection of samples of tuberculin containing the active depressor substance, after the adrenals had been removed, caused a drop with a more gradual recovery to the previous pressure level, than when the adrenals had been left intact. The intravenous injection into the dog with both adrenals removed of an emulsion of its own adrenals caused a return of the blood pressure to and above the normal level.
Further light is apparently thrown on the nature of the poisons of the tubercle bacillus as found in tuberculin by the following observations.
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