EXPERIMENTAL TUBERCULOSILICOSIS - A COMPARISON OF EFFECTS PRODUCED BY SOME OF ITS VARIOUS PATHOGENIC COMPONENTS

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Abstract
Tuberculin-positive guinea pigs were divided into groups and injected intratracheally with one of the following pathogenic agents or combinations of agents: iron-coated quartz dust, living tubercle bacilli, formalin-killed tubercle bacilli, tuberculin, iron-coated quartz dust plus living tubercle bacilli, iron-coated quartz dust plus dead tubercle bacilli, and iron-coated quartz dust plus tuberculin. Some of the essential findings are given in tabular form. An extensive pulmonary consolidation was produced by the iron-coated quartz dust in conjunction with dead tubercle bacilli. This consolidation consisted basically of a chronic accretive interstitial pneumonitis with extensive obliteration of air spaces, collagenous fibrosis, focal necrosis, calcification, and cavitation. The same dust in conjunction with tuberculin produced a similar consolidation although there was less collagenous fibrosis, less focal fibrosis, virtually no calcification, and no cavitation. The pulmonary diseases produced by the combination of iron-coated dust with either living tubercle bacilli, dead tubercle bacilli, or merely tuberculin are very similar and differ from one another in minor detail only. These differences in relatively minor aspects are considered to be functions of host susceptibility or dosage of pathogenic agents,or both. The ability of dead tubercle bacilli and of tuberculin, in conjunction with iron-coated quartz dust, to produce pulmonary disease simulating tuberculosilicosis is interpreted to support the thesis of Vigliani and Pernis that tuberculo -silicosis is basically a reciprocal potentiation of the inflammatory response to quartz dust and to the tuberculous infection.

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