Margaret Bevans

Effect of ACTH on wound healing in humans.

Summary Observations are presented indicating that during hyperadrenalism induced by ACTH there is inhibition of wound healing in humans. The value of these observations as a means of studying the effects of hyperadrenalism at the tissue level is implied.

Production of arteriosclerosis in dogs by cholesterol and thiouracil feeding.

Abstract 1. 1. The production of arteriosclerosis in an omniverous mammal, the dog, by the feeding of cholesterol and thiouracil has been confirmed. 2. 2. The resultant arteriosclerotic lesions in the dog have the same anatomical distribution and sites of predilection as do lesions in man, including the occurrence of cerebral arteriosclerosis. 3. 3. The morphological features of the arteriosclerotic lesions in dogs resemble those of human arteriosclerosis in that infiltration of the intima with foam cells and proliferation of the endothelium of the intima occurs in the early lesions, while extension into the media, hyalinization, hemorrhage, and calcification develop in the more advanced placques. 4. 4. It has been demonstrated that thiouracil in the dosage used does not lead to arterial lesions. 5. 5. The feeding of 10 Gm. of cholesterol daily, in addition to the regular diet, containing less than 5.0 per cent fat, without thiouracil, resulted in a moderate hypercholesterolemia and early arteriosclerosis in one dog.

The production of glomerulonephritis by immunologic methods

Abstract 1. 1. Specific antikidney, antiglomerular, or antiplacenta serum, when injected in the rat or dog, produces acute glomerulonephritis, which may be fatal within a few days, may heal, or may progress to chronic nephritis resulting in death from renal failure months or years later. Duck antirabbit-kidney serum injected in rabbits produces a similar result. 2. 2. The clinical course and pathologic lesions of this experimental disease resemble those of human nephritis. 3. 3. In the rat, high-titered specific antisera may produce a nephrotic syndrome characterized by edema, hypercholesterolemia, hypoproteinemia, and massive proteinuria. 4. 4. Between the clinical picture of acute nephritis and the onset of chronic nephritis in the rat, there may be an interval of several months during which time the animal appears normal. 5. 5. Nephritis produced in rats, rabbits, or dogs by the injection of specific duck or chicken antikidney serum often has a latent period of several days. 6. 6. Evidence has been presented that, at least in the rabbit, the onset of nephritis after a latent period is the result of a reaction between the injected antikidney foreign protein (fowl gamma globulin) attached to kidney parenchyma and the antibodies produced by the rabbit to this antigen. 7. 7. The lesions of delayed nephritis in the rabbit, rat, or dog are similar to those which occur in nephritis with no latent period. 8. 8. Evidence has been developed from chemical and histochemical studies of the glomerulus of the dog and rat which indicates that the basement membrane of the glomerulus may be the source of the antigen inciting production of the nephrotoxic antibody. 9. 9. The new immunologic and histochemical techniques which have been used in the study of experimental nephrotoxic nephritis may in the future give data on the mechanism of human nephritis.

Chiari's syndrome; hepatic vein occlusion; a case of multiple venous thromboses.

Abstract A case is presented of a young man who had thrombophlebitis of the legs for many years. At twenty-four years of age thrombosis of the inferior vena cava suddenly developed involving the hepatic veins with the typical symptomatology of Chiaris syndrome. This disease process was complicated by a concurrent endocarditis which responded to penicillin therapy. Six months after the development of the caval thrombosis he began to show evidence of what proved to be chronic glomerulonephritis. A year after the caval thrombosis the patients collateral circulation had compensated sufficiently so that the ascites and edema disappeared. After a six-month interval the ascites reappeared due to the development of a portal vein thrombosis. Two years after the first appearance of the caval thrombosis the patient died in uremia following the extension of the thrombosis to the renal veins.

Atherosclerotic lesions in diabetes.

Since arteriosclerosis accounted for 69.4 per cent of deaths in a series of diabetic subjects in the five-year period from 1944 to 1949, it seems appropriate to reassess our knowledge of this serious complication of diabetes in the last trimester of 1954. “Atherosclerotic lesions” I have interpreted as meaning those lesions, primarily intimal, which occur in the large and medium-size arteries of the body. Within the limitations of this paper the term “atherosclerosis” will be considered to be synonymous with arteriosclerosis of the intimal type. I propose to discuss atherosclerosis from the pathologists point of view, to consider the relationship between this disease and diabetes, and to summarize some of the problems that confront investigators in the field of arteriosclerosis.