Peptone Shock in Fetal Dogs and its Significance in the Metabolism of Histamine

Abstract

It has previously been shown1, 2 that “peptone” shock in dogs, which is produced by the intravenous injection of proteoses, is accompanied by and due to the liberation of histamine from the tissues of the injected animals. The source of, and the reasons for, the storage of histamine in the tissues are only incompletely understood. It seemed, therefore, of interest to determine whether histamine is present in the tissues of fetal animals, and if it is present, to determine whether it can readily be liberated with resulting shock reactions such as occur in adult animals. The studies of Code3 indicate that the traces of histamine which are normally present in the blood of dogs occur in the cellular elements and not in the plasma. This would imply that the histamine normally circulating in the blood of a pregnant dog would not be accessible to the fetus. As there is no opportunity for the formation of histamine within the fetus by bacterial decomposition of histidine in the fetal intestine, it may be presumed...