AN ETIOLOGIC STUDY OF HODGKIN'S DISEASE

In a preliminary note recently published,1we reported that by repeated injection of the diphtheroid organism cultivated by us from cases of Hodgkin's disease, there had been produced in monkeys lesions of the lymphnodes showing all the essential features of early Hodgkin's disease in man. Up to that time we had been unable to demonstrate that the organism could survive in the monkey for any great length of time, and therefore we felt that we could not assert that we had produced Hodgkin's disease in the monkey, or that we had even demonstrated any great pathogenicity of the diphtheroid organism for that species. Since making that report, however, the course of our experimental work has demonstrated fully the pathogenicity of the culture we were using, and has further shown that the virulence of the organism to the monkey may easily be increased even to the point of producing death