I. Influence of Eggwhite upon the Absorption of Bacteria from the Intestinal Tract.

Friedberger 1 states that prolonged boiling of eggs, when fed exclusively, leads to severe trophic disturbances; Newburgh 2 fed eggwhite to rabbits and produced renal injuries after a short period of time. Galanini 3 fed only eggwhite to white rats and caused albumen in the urine before death; Friedberger and Abraham 4 state that egg diets frequently cause toxic effects. The harmful results of an exclusive egg diet are mainly due to the white of the egg (Stenquist, 5 Baglioni, 6 Bateman, 7 Iskikawa, 8 Arnold 9 ). In this communication we report the results of experiments dealing with absorption through the blood stream.

The abdomens of 4 dogs, fasted for 24 hours, were opened under ether anesthesia and a suspension of B. prodigiosus (washings of 24 hours growth on agar plate in 50 cc. NaCl solution) was injected directly into the duodenum. Specimens of blood were taken from the portal vein, femoral vein and artery, every 5 minutes for half an hour, and plated on agar. After 24 hours of incubation at 37°C. the plates were read. In the specimens from the portal vein the results were always positive, and since we found the bacteria also in the femoral vein, though not in such large numbers, we took the specimens only from the femoral vein for subsequent experiments. Repeated puncture of the portal vein and the femoral artery caused hemorrhage and led to experimental errors.

Our experiments were conducted in the above mentioned manner. Suspension of bacteria was made up in NaCl and injected into the duodenum of 6 dogs; bacteria were suspended in one fresh raw eggwhite and injected into the duodenum of 8 dogs. Blood specimens were taken from the femoral vein at various intervals of time and the number of B. prodigiosus in the blood calculated per cc. (see chart).