EXPERIMENTAL CHEMICAL PNEUMONIA

It is obvious from the experiments reported that concentrations of chloramine-T solutions, even more dilute than those which are well borne by the nasopharyngeal mucosa, are injurious to the pulmonary tissue when introduced directly into. the bronchi in large volume. The pulmonary lesions produced are of the nature of an extensive bronchopneumonia which progresses during the first 2 days after injection of the chemical and then regresses, to disappear, as a rule, by the 7th day. Similar pulmonary lesions were produced by intrabronchial insufflation of Dakin's solution of hypochlorite of sodium. These studies taken in conjunction with the earlier ones of Kline and Meltzer in which aleuronat, starch, egg yolk, and lecithin were insufflated into the lungs, show that pulmonary inflammation may be induced by various chemical substances—with the following differences. Aleuronat and starch set up consolidations containing much fibrin, as is the case with virulent pneumococci; egg yolk and lecithin gave lesions with little fibrin, as is the case with avirulent pneumococci. Both series of substances produced lobar pneumonia, while the pulmonary lesions induced by chloramine-T and sodium hypochlorite were of the nature of bronchopneumonia. The consolidations of the lung produced by chemical substances differ from infectious pulmonary inflammations only in their sterility. These experimental results strongly suggest the view that the anatomical findings in pneumonia represent a part of a mechanism of defense and repair which the animal body creates in its struggle against infection and intoxication.