Abstract
Summary and Conclusions
1. Minimal doses of internal irradiation (0.01 to 0.05 mc of colloidal radiogold) induced in C3H mice within 5 or 6 days a very marked congestive swelling of the spleen which lasted for about 14 days. No significant effect on size of the spleen could be obtained within a wide range (50 to 200 r) of small doses of external irradiation. 2. Large doses of radiogold (2 mc) as well as of external irradiation (1200 r) caused shrinkage and partial atrophy of the spleen within 3 days, the effect of the former being more severe. 3. Large dose of colloidal radiogold (2 mc) injected 5 or 6 days after pretreatment with a minimal dose (0.01 mc) of the same radioisotope induced within 3 days more marked shrinkage and more complete atrophy of the spleen than the same dose of radiogold without pretreatment. Substitution of radiogold
(either of a preparative dose or of a large dose) by analogous doses of external irradiation did not reproduce the same drastic changes of the spleen. 4. These findings were interpreted in the light of the existing evidence that the radiosensitivity of the spleen increases with the increase of the blood supply. It was presumed that high congestion of the spleen induced by a small dose of colloidal radiogold constituted “the preparative factor” responsible for rapidly progressive severe atrophy of the spleen after subsequent injection of a high dose of radiogold into the same mouse
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