Observations on the Pathogenesis of the Myeloid Leucemia of Fowls.

Abstract

In a preceding communication1 a new transmissible strain of leucemia has been briefly described. In the subsequent passages of this strain several of the inoculated birds died of intercurrent diseases chiefly of an acute or subacute inflammatory process of the upper respiratory tract. Birds dying of such infections but not inoculated with leucemic material did not show the pathological changes characteristic for the leucemias. The early death of several birds permitted a study of the pathogenesis of myeloid leucemia. A conspicuous result is obtained when the sequence of events in the development of the organ and blood changes is reconstructed from the following table which includes all the autopsies of 2 recent passages.An extensive hyperplasia of the bone marrow unaccompanied by a rise in the number of the circulating white blood corpuscles appears to be the first marked pathological change which follows the inoculation of leucemic blood (Stage I). The hyperplasia of the bone marrow consists of an enormo...