The inhibiting effect of cortisone on proliferating connective tissue (Ragan, Howes, Plotz, Meyer, and Blunt, 1949 ; Spain, Molomut, and Haber, 1950a ; Cavallero, Sala, Amira, and Borasi, 1951) and phagocytosis (Spain and others, 1950b) led us to observe the effect of this hormone on the developing silicotic nodule. Short-term studies on the effect of cortisone on the reaction of the mouse peritoneum to quartz showed a delay in macrophage response (Curran, 1952) and an inhibition of fibrosis (Magarey and Gough, 1952 ; Schiller, 1953). Over a longer period the effect of cortisone has been observed on the development of fibrosis in rats injected intratracheally with 50 mg. of quartz (Harrison, King, Dale, and Sichel, 1952). Cortisone treatment decreased the mobility of dust-laden phagocytes, and the marked alteration in the distri bution of dust throughout the lung modified the normal pattern of fibrosis. The fibrosis in the cortisone-treated animals was irregular, diffuse, and generally less. In this paper we report the analyses of lungs for silica and collagen, and hilar lymph glands for silica, from the above experiment on rats. The amount of collagen gave an indication of the amount of fibrosis ; generally there was less in the cortisone group. The partition of silica between lung and lymph node gave a rough measure of macrophage activity. These analytical results con firmed previous histological findings. This confirmation was not so marked when the same methods were applied to material from a later experiment in which King, Harrison, and Attygalle (1954) observed the effect of cortisone upon estab lished silicosis. One hundred days after an intra tracheal injection of quartz cortisone was given to a group of rats and the hormone treatment then continued regularly for 260 days. On histological examination the lungs of the cortisone-treated animals appeared similar to those of the controls, which had received quartz alone. The maximum grade of fibrosis was present in both groups 150 days after injection of the quartz, i.e., 50 days after the start of cortisone treatment, and this picture p rsisted till the end of the experiment. Chemical examination, however, showed differences between the two groups.
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