Evening star., 1938-03-31
EGG TO HELP SOLVE
DISEASE MYSTERY
Test Tubes InocuIated to
Trace AiIment-Seen
Outstanding Step.
Dv THOMAS X. HENRY,
STAN Correspondent Of The Star.

test tubes of some of mans deadliest
maladies. an outstanding advance in
experimental medicine, were described
before the American Physiological So
ciety meeting here today.
Experiments demonstrating the
possibility Of innoculating unmatched
chickens with great variety of human
and animal diseases were described by
DR.. E. w. Goodpasture of Vanderbilt
University Medical School. BY this
means crucial experiments, now very
costly and some of them impossible,
can be carried out.
Now about the only way to study the
incubation period Of various germs in
the body and the development of the
diseases themselves is to try them out
on animals. Even when relatively
cheap rats and guinea pigs can be used
this is costly since the animals must
be killed and studied at every stage
IN the disease progress But several
OF the most virulent human maladies
can be reproduced only in the great
apes which are so rare and costly that
systematic study is almost impossible.
Such a disease is infantile paralysis.
Even the apes do not appear subject
to influenza.
Hatched Chicken Immune.
Fully Matched chickens. are immune
TO most human diseases. In the en-
bryonic stage, however, tissue of the
various organs still is in a formative
stage, the co-ordinated resistance of
the system as whole has not started
to function. and the various filterable
viruses and bacteria will attack the
kinds OF cells which form the organs
they will attack later on in different
animals. including man. In animals
after birth, DR.. Goodpasture stresses,
q VIRUS must be brought in contract
with the cells which are specific to it.
Thus the encephalitis virus can cause
damage only when it gets into touch
with the cells of the brain. In the
embryo all these cells are open to
attack.
The experimental work at present
DR.. Goodpasture said, is largely an
effort to determine to how many dis
eases the egg is susceptible. Already
there is evidence that it is susceptible
to small pox, sheep pox, dog distem-
per. foot Snd mouth disease. psitti-
COSTS, influenza, the common cold.
measles. yellow fever, scarlet fever,
meningitis and whooping cough. For
some of these no experimental animal
has been found in the past.
DR.. Goodpasture told of developing
IN the embryonic chick brain cell
LESSONS from encephalitis similar to
those found in the brains of children.
once established in such a system
the disease is carried along until the
chick is on the point of Matching.
For the first time it may be possible
to observe the first point OF attack
and the first damage to the cells.
Testing of Remedies.
Another possibility is that of testing
the efficacy of various remedies. Such
tests are often open to doubt in
mature animals because conditions
cannot be strictly controlled. The
animal is wilful organism which
will eat what it can find, as much
or as little as it pleases, and cannot
be kept from running around Thus
1t is not possible entirely to eliminate
the complications between the remedy,
the disease and food and exercise.
All the food of the unmatched chick
Is contained in the egg itself. The
embryo has not varying appetite and,
at least up to the point of Matching,
1t is perfectly quiescent within the
cell. Thus the experiments can be as
rigidly controlled as those in
chemists test tube.
The most recent experiments, DR..
Goodpasture said, have demonstrated
the possibility of opening the shell
and grating human skin upon the
developing embryo. The human tissue
lives within the egg up to the point
Of Matching. This opens up the pos
sibility of injecting human cells them
selves for testing the mode of attack
and progress of different diseases.
Thus man himself can be made an
experimental animal for the study Of
his own diseases.
Morphine Substitutes.
Development of two promising
substitutes for morphine, more power
full as pain killers and less habit
forming, was described by DR.. Nathan
B. Eddy Of the University of Michigan.
This Is part of the cooperative
project under the National Research
Council between the University of
Michigan and the University of Vir-
ginia. At Charlottesville chemists have
been juggling the atoms in the NOR
phine molecule until they have pro-
duced 125 morphine derivatives. They
also have made more than 200 syn
thetic products closely resembling the
drug. At Ann Arbor these products
have been tried out on animals.
Out Of all these, DR.. Eddy said, two
show exceptional promise, although
one OF them, a synthetic product, must
be given further study before definite
conclusions can be stated.
Experiments with some substance
produced in the kidneys which raises
blood pressure were reported by Drs.
David I. Abramson and Ben Friedman
Of Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.
They got it from rabbits and in
3ected it into dogs. Some drugs which
ordinarily raise blood pressure can be
nullined by injecting cocaine at the
same time. Cocaine had no effect on
TINS substance. 1t caused a slowly-ris-
Ing blood pressure which remained
high Tor about 20 minutes before going
down again. This was almost the op-
posite effect from that of epinephrine
The most sensational Of blood-pressure
elevators.
While present in normal kidneys.