Influence of B.C.G. on Experimental Amyloidosis

Abstract

PREVIOUS histological and experimental investigations have suggested a close pathogenetic relationship between the reticulo-endothelial system (RES) and amyloidosis^1–3. The two-phase cellular theory² considers the reticular cells and the plasma cells originating from them to be of aetiological importance in the formation of amyloid. The shift from pyroninophilia to periodic acid–Schiff positivity in the cells is believed to represent the morphological equivalent of exhaustion of the RES which leads to amyloid development. Our functional studies⁴ on experimental amyloidosis have revealed a strain dependent increase with phagocytic activity of the RES during the late preamyloid stage, followed by a return to the normal state at the time of the first deposition of amyloid. Attempts to influence experimental amyloidosis by alteration of the activity of the RES by carbon “blockade”^5,6, as well as its increase by castration, seem to inhibit the formation of amyloid⁷. Increased amyloid formation has been induced by treatment with colloidal gold⁸.