THE EXPERIMENTAL INDUCTION OF GLOMERULONEPHRITIS LIKE THAT IN MAN BY INFECTION WITH GROUP A STREPTOCOCCI

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Abstract
One or more courses of inoculations isolated from patients with acute glomerulonephritis were given to 106 rabbits spaced 1 to 4 months apart. Marked proteinuria often with hematuria and occasionally with azotemia, was detected in 22 of the animals. Fifteen were sacrificed and 10 showed renal changes like those of acute or recurrent acute glomerulonephritis in man. Such changes occurred in 3 other rabbits whose urine was not examined and that died or were sacrificed 1 to 3 weeks after onset of infection. The remaining 7 animals in which marked proteinuria had occurred died or were sacrificed later, in some cases after additional infections. Two had become azotemic and 2 convulsed and died after giving birth; and there were renal changes like those that occur in man in chronic latent glomerulonephritis, toxemia of pregnancy superimposed on chronic latent glomerulonephritis, or chronic active glomerulonephritis. Anatomical changes in the kidneys in the experimentally induced and in naturally occurring glomerulonephritis are compared and illustrated. The pathogenesis of poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis is discussed.