PNEUMONIC LESIONS MADE BY INTRABRONCHIAL INSUFFLATION OF NON-VIRULENT PNEUMOCOCCI

The intrabronchial insufflation of a non-virulent pneumococcus causes, like the insufflation of a virulent pneumococcus, the development of an exudate in the lungs which, in general, leaves the framework unaffected, and the lesion presents the gross appearance of a lobar pneumonia. It differs, however, materially from the pneumonia produced by virulent pneumococci in the important points that the consolidation tends to a more rapid resolution, the disease is non-fatal, the blood is not invaded by the organism, and the exudate is strikingly poor in fibrin. As to the question which was the starting point for the foregoing investigation, namely, whether the pneumonic lesion produced by the streptococcus is merely a form of pneumonia caused by a less virulent organism, it may be answered for the dog, it seems, in the negative. The leucocytic infiltration of the framework of the lungs which occurs invariably in streptococcus pneumonia, and which is practically absent in the lesions caused by the virulent as well as by the non-virulent pneumococcus, is a strong enough feature to form a dividing line between the two forms of experimental pneumonia previously described.