Abstract
Summary and conclusions
1. The mortality rate from one intravenous MLD/100 of endotoxin was reduced from 100% to 40-60% by antibiotic therapy given prior to or at the time of injecting the endotoxin. This was true even if the antibiotic was given orally and was completely non-absorbable. Therefore, endotoxins from intraintestinal bacteria are involved in the death from an intravenous MLD/100 of endotoxin. Data are given to show that antibiotics act solely as antibacterial agents, and not as anti-endotoxic agents.
2. A sublethal intravenous dose of endotoxin promptly induced in rabbits an increased sensitivity to a supplementary fractional dose of endotoxin so that a second dose given one hour later increased the mortality from zero to 67%, even though the total of both doses, if given as a single initial dose, was not lethal. Recovery of nearly normal resistance to the second dose of endotoxin required about 4 hours. Antibiotics given with the initial dose rendered the second dose harmless; but the same antibiotics given with the second dose did not prevent death. Therefore, it is inferred that death from the second dose involved the production of additional endotoxin.
3. Reasons are given for inferring that similar phenomena operate in hemorrhagic shock and account for the development of irreversi-bility to transfusion.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.