Desoxycorticosterone in Rabbits: Simulation of Rabbit “Toxemia of Pregnancy”*

EFFECTS of prolonged administration of desoxycorticosterone acetate (DCA) have been amply documented in rats, chicks, dogs and man (1). Observations in rabbits are scanty or lacking in detail. In the rat DCA, under appropriate conditions, elicits arterial hypertension and hypertensive vascular disease; in the dog it provokes neither substantial hypertension nor hypertensive disease, although it alters the metabolisms of water, sodium and potassium, and causes paralysis from lack of potassium. In human beings sensitized to DCA by severe adrenal or, as seems likely, renal disease, it elicits edema, hypertension, and occasionally vascular lesions (2, 3). The few experiments in rabbits have been oriented towards production of a state similar to eclamptogenic toxemia of human beings and have not been entirely rewarding. Thus, Dexter and Weiss (4) found no substantial effect of DCA at the end of two weeks;