[Influence of tobacco smoking on the development of experimental pulmonary tuberculosis].

The present investigation was designed to the study, in rabbits, of morphologic and enzymatic pulmonary alterations produced by tobacco smoke and the course of tuberculosis under these conditions. The histologic examination revealed muciparous hyperplasia and pavementing metaplasia of the bronchic epithelium, accompanied by interstitial cellular reactions, reticulin, fibrilogenesis, atelectasis, emphysema and marked debility of the animals. In the animals treated with tobacco smoke the tuberculous lesions were very extensive and had an exudative-necrotic character.

Experimental viral lung fibrosis. Quantitative study of the relationships between cell accumulations and fibrillogenesis.

The relationships between mesenchymal lung cell accumulations and reticulinic fibrillogenesis were analysed morphologically and quantitatively during the development of a viral infection in the rabbit lung, induced by intranasal administration of influenza A2 virus. Cells and fibrils accumulated in the alveolar walls and in the interlobular areas of the lung were counted during the evolution of the experiment and statistically analysed. A significant statistical correlation between lung cell accumulations and fibrillogenesis could be demonstrated during the development of viral lung fibrosis.

Morphogenesis and pathogenesis of chronic lung diseases. IX. Development of reticulinic fibrillogenesis during the evolution of an associated experimental silicosis and tuberculosis.

Well developed silicotic nodules of rabbit lungs were infected with tuberculosis and treated with tuberculostatics. The spatial evolution of lesions, as well as the density of intralesional and perilesional reticulinic fibrils were quantitatively analysed, measured by planimetric and target methods, and statistically analysed. Under tuberculostatics, the size of lesions, expressed in the dynamics of the SL/ST % ratio, rapidly diminished to half after three months.