Chemotherapy of experimental Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in hamsters and host

Young guinea pigs were experimentally infected with Mycoplasma pneumoniae. The organisms were isolated from the lungs of infected animals for at least nine weeks thereafter. Mycoplasmacidal antibody developed five weeks after infection, while lung lesions were detected within two weeks after inoculation. The histo-pathology of the affected lungs was similar to that observed in infected hamsters. The guinea pig may prove to be useful for studies on the pathogenesis of disease and the cell-mediated immune response during infection with M. pneumoniae. Mycoplasma pneumoniae is an important patho-gen of the lower respiratory tract of man [1]. Although its pathogenesis has been extensively studied in the experimental hamster model, sev-eral aspects of the immune response in M. pneu-moniae disease remain relatively unexplored. In comparative studies, Fernald and Clyde found that resistance to the development of lung lesions wa