The Accumulation of Iron in Tuberculous Areas

Repeated intravenous injections of dilute ferric chloride solution in tuberculous rabbits markedly retard the development of the disease as evidenced both by a prolongation in the survival time and by comparison of lesions in control and experimental animals. Partial immunity induced by first infection combined with ferric chloride administration enhances in reinfected animals even more strikingly the favorable effects of the iron salt. Some of the experimental animals were still alive and apparently well about 6 months after the death of the last of the controls which succumbed about 4 months after reinfection with virulent tubercle bacilli. Factors that may perhaps account for the favorable effect of ferric chloride in experimental tuberculosis have been discussed.