Studies on Tuberculin Reaction with Special Reference to Tuberculin Fever

Abstract

It has been experienced that febrile response appears in experimental tuberculous cattle tested intradermally with tuberculin and that it still appears in repeated tuberculin tests carried out every three or more weeks, but that intradermal test becomes to be weakened or negative. From such experience, febrile response in intradermal test deserves much attention in the control of bovine tuberculosis.
During the febrile response, a significant decrease in lymphocyte count and an increase in neutrophil count were observed in the blood picture. The same finding was obtained from the blood picture of a hypersensitized rabbit infected with 0.5mg of tuberculoprotein extracted from bacillary body with 0.2 NaOH. The febrile response was observed in hypersensitized rabbits so treated, but not in health ones in which little significant change was observed in the blood picture.
The influence of daily intraveous injection of tuberculoprotein on the febrile response of hypersensitized rabbits was examined. As a result, it was made clear that febrile response disappeared in some of the treated rabbits after successive intravenous injection. Tuberculin fever, even if it appeared, disappeared soon after successive injection.
Early tissue reaction was examined, by the trypan blue method, in tuberculin tests on hypersensitized guinea pigs, in which distinot bluing of the site of tuberculin injection was observed.