“Experimental hepatic cirrhosis in dogs from repeated inhalations of chloroform”

The difficulty of inducing pronounced interstitial hepatitis in dogs by means of poisons makes it of interest to report the well-defined results obtained as a consequence of repeated inhalations of chloroform vapor. Experiments of this character were made upon three dogs. In one experiment the animal received chloroform three times a week on eighteen occasions, each inhalation having been continued for an hour. For six subsequent inhalations the duration of the narcosis was one and a half hour. The duration of the entire experiment was about eight weeks. The liver everywhere was found to be the seat of an abundant, richly cellular, connective tissue growth between and into the lobules. The bile ducts were proliferated, and the liver cells showed much fatty and hyaline degeneration.

In two other dogs similar experiments were carried out with the exception that in each of these instances a highly satisfactory control was secured by first removing a small portion of normal liver for subsequent comparison with the damaged liver. In one of these dogs the inhalations were given eighteen times in about six weeks. The animal lived somewhat longer than five months and showed a well-marked though not extreme cirrhosis. The third dog was narcotized forty-nine times and lived about eight months. The changes in this instance were perfectly distinct, but less advanced than in either of the other animals mentioned.

The liver tissue from the first dog was subjected to an analysis which showed a distinct fall in the normal percentage of the arginin constituent of the protein molecule. Similar analyses show that the arginin yield from protein may fall rapidly after even very short exposure to toxic influences and these results, indicating early damage to living protoplasm, give much force to the contention that the connective tissue overgrowth in these cases of hepatic cirrhosis is secondary to changes in the chemical constitution of the liver cell.