The production of coliform infection in the urinary tract of rabbits

THE earliest experimental work on the production of lesions in the urinary tract by means of coliform bacilli was done in the year 1888 by Albarran and Hall6 (I).They found that cystitis occurred if injection of an emulsion of bacilli into the bladder was followed by ligature of the urethra.A similar result was obtained without obstruction of the urinary flow, if the mucous membrane of the bladder was injured by the introduction of a foreign body a t the same time that the emulsion was injected.They also produced pyelonephritis of one kidney by injecting organisms into the ureter, which wag then ligatured; in two of these cases lesions were found in the opposite kidney as well.These results were confirmed by Achard and Regnault (18912), and by Schmidt and Aschoff (1893 3).Schnitzler (1890 4) produced a cystitis by simply introducing the organisms into the bladder.The bacillus he used was a liquefier of gelatin, and intravenous injections of this organism were followed by intense nephritis.Schnitzler's results were at this time unique, no other observers having succeeded in producing cystitis without the infliction of some injury on the bladder mucous membrane in addition to the intra-vesical injection of organisms, and lesions in the kidneys following intravenous injections were only rarely described.Bazy (1893 j ) ligatured the urethra and injected bacilli intravenously when a well-marked cystitis resulted.His experiments opened up a new field of research for subsequent investigators.From 1886, following Wyssokowitsch's experiments, up to 1910, much work was done in order to determine whether organisms injected intravenously were excreted in the urine.Wyssokowitsch (1886 F, always found evidence of hremorrhage or infarct in the kidney in those cases which had yielded positive urinary cultures.Boccardie and Pernice and Scagliosi (quoted by Jahn (19107)), among others, confirmed these results.Sherrington (1893 *) concluded from his experiments that only organisms which are pathogenic for the animal used have the power of damaging the Research Fellow.