Bacterial Factor in Traumatic Shock in the Rat

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Abstract
Prophylactic antibiotic therapy prolongs the rat's tolerance of hemorrhagic shock and considerably increases the survival rate. This is evidence that a bacterial factor is involved in the failure to respond to transfusion. Four and one-half-hour tourniquet shock differs from hemorrhagic shock in the rat. It remains reversible even if the fluid therapy is withheld for as long as 18 hours, whereas hemorrhagic shock becomes irreversible after some 3 1/2 hours. This may be because 4 1/2-hour tourniquet shock is essentially dehydration shock and, therefore, less damaging than shock due to whole blood loss. This is indicated by the fact that the average survival rate in 4 1/2-hour tourniquet shock is 70% with saline therapy alone. Hence, there is less need to protect the rat with antibiotic therapy. Aureomycin increases the survival rate from 70% to 88%. The antibacterial defense is damaged in both types of shock; but, with the techniques employed to date, we have not been able to show that it is damaged to a greater extent in hemorrhagic than in tourniquet shock. Although the patterns of response to shock are in general the same in the rat as in the dog, the rat displays greater antibacterial resistance than the dog during the early hours of shock.

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