Experimental Scurvy in the Guinea Pig.

Abstract

Increasing abstinence and loss of weight, decreasing activity and drowsiness, or marked nervousness and greatly heightened activity in some animals, are characteristic of early scurvy. In later stages, stiffness, weakness and even complete helplessness may supervene in the hind quarters, especially of young animals. Many animals were very fat at time of death. Gross hematuria and melena, drooling and a foul odor were sometimes present. Evidences of pain were noticed seldom, and bleeding and ulcerated gums, loose incisors, fever and constipation were never observed. Thirst and chewing movements, even when complete anorexia seemed present, were noted in most animals, and a lowered temperature in all of them. Not infrequently a relatively large mass of soft, foul feces protruded from the anus in the late stages, and a foul odor seemed to emanate from the mouth. Swollen joints were seen only in very young pigs. Recovery from the scorbutic condition was often possible in young animals, which had suffered an apparent paralysis of the hind quarters, as late as approximately 6 hours before death, but these pigs always had permanently rigid hind legs because of lack of mobility at the knee. Ankylosis at the knee was never encountered. General edema was encountered only once in a large series of animals, but some edema was relatively common in the peri-vesical fat. At necropsy the well-known subcutaneous and deep hemorrhages, even into the central and peripheral nervous systems, were present and grossly pseudo-pneumonic areas in the lungs occurred in most animals. Next to these changes, the most conspicuous change was the occurrence of fatty degeneration of the liver, even up to pure whiteness at the caudal margins. Fatty infiltration and degeneration were also found in the kidneys, adrenals, lungs, pancrease and, to some extent in some animals, in the skeletal muscles, and in one case it was present in a very marked degree in the walls of the pancreatic artery.