Lily S. Zia, C. Forkner
Dec 1, 1934
Citations
0
Influential Citations
3
Citations
Quality indicators
Journal
Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine
Abstract
Acute agranulocytosis, an important complication of kala-azar, has been observed in 8 of 71 patients suffering from visceral leishmaniasis. 1 , 2 Six of these 8 patients exhibited a sudden and marked drop in the granulocytes at some time during treatment for kala-azar with either urea stibamine or neostibosan. Both drugs contain the benzene ring in their complex molecule. Acute agranulocytosis following the administration of certain compounds containing the benzene ring has been reported. 3 The following experiment was made in order to observe the effect of intravenous injection of urea stibamine and neostibosan on the blood of normal rabbits. Eight normal rabbits were taken from the stock without selection. After a control period during which regular blood counts were made, 3 of the rabbits were given intravenous injections of urea stibamine, 3 others were given neostibosan and the remaining 2 were held as controls. An appropriate amount of either drug was dissolved in sufficient volume of double distilled water to make a 5% solution. The injection was given daily, except Sundays, through the marginal vein of the ear. Since urea stibamine is believed to be more toxic than neostibosan, the former was given in smaller individual doses. The total amounts were the same in all except in one (rabbit 1) in which it was double that of the others. Nothing was given to the control animals. Counts were made on the blood obtained from the tributaries of the marginal vein of the opposite ear. These counts were done twice weekly and they included hemoglobin estimation, enumeration of total red and white blood cells and differential count of the leucocytes by the supravital method. After the rabbits had received the prescribed amount of the drug, they were killed by intravenous injection of air.