Studies of the Chick Edema Disease: 6. Preventive Treatment with Oral Diuretics

Abstract

PREVIOUS studies of the chick edema disease (CED) reported from these laboratories (Douglass and Flick, 1961; Flick et al., 1962, 1963a, b, 1965a, b, 1966a, b, 1967) have dealt primarily with the detection and development of the disease. Other investigators (Campbell and Friedman, 1966a, b; Firestone, 1966) have studied the distribution of the chemical agent, known as the chick edema factor (CEF), in various tissues and organs of the rat and chick. They attempted to ascertain the mechanism of action of the factor in the production of the disease.A primary symptom of CED is the formation of edema, from which the name of the disease is derived. Several years ago, Alexander (1962) in limited studies found little effect of oral diuretics on this accumulation of fluid.The following studies were made to learn if feeding various diuretics concomitantly with the toxic fatty material (TFM) containing the CEF would tend to prevent .