The experimental production of toxemia of pregnancy

Abstract

The present experiments represent an attempt to demonstrate under conditions of laboratory control, the production in rabbits of the anatomic lesions which characterize uteroplacental apoplexy in women. Uteroplacental apoplexy, in the words of Couvelaire (1911) who named it, is characterized by “a colossal infiltration of blood in the uterine wall, occurring in the region of attachment, cleaving the muscle bundles and dissociating certain bundles fiber from fiber. The ovaries are riddled with points of hemorrhagic effusion. The broad ligaments are infiltrated with blood. It amounts indeed to a veritable ‘apoplexie utero-placentaire.’” The present experiments therefore involve the production of hemorrhage into the wall of the uterus and placenta which results frequently in premature separation of the placenta.Since injury of this type occurs in women under conditions of obscure etiology, the present problem is: first, to determine whether or not identical anatomic lesions occur in a laboratory animal, and second, to evaluate the various factors introduced under controlled experimental conditions which cause normal pregnancy to terminate in uteroplacental apoplexy.