The Respiration in Plasma in Disease Due to Filtrable Virus

Abstract

In 1927 Kempner, working in Warburg's Institute, demonstrated the disappearance of oxygen and the development of CO2 in the plasma of chickens suffering from fowl-plague. He obtained the plasma by adding heparin to whole blood taken at the height of the disease. The plasma was placed in Warburg's manometric apparatus, saturated with a mixture of CO2 and O2 and kept at constant temperature. Readings were done for several hours and changes in pressure noted. Since the plasma from normal chickens did not show respiration and the changes observed were sufficiently great to be outside of experimental error, Kempner concluded that the respiration was connected with the metabolism of the virus. Using Warburg's apparatus and the technic described above, we repeated the experiments using plasma obtained from pigs injected with hog-cholera. It was impossible to obtain virus of fowl-plague either in the United States or in Canada. Plasma from cases of measles was similarly used as there is considerable evidence for its being a virus disease. In addition plasma from miscellaneous affections, including rheumatic fever, was similarly studied. Our results were as follows: (a) Experiments with normal human or animal plasma did not show a disappearance of oxygen. (b) A suspension of red cells from chickens was similarly used. Respiration was measured and found to occur in agreement with the values obtained by Warburg for goose-blood cells. (c) Hog cholera plasma was obtained from experimentally infected hogs at the height of the disease. The animals were killed by cutting their throats and the blood caught directly in large sterile test-tubes containing heparin. Autopsy in each case showed that the animal had been suffering from hog cholera. Blood from 15 hogs was used and in most instances duplicate experiments were done.