Comparison of febrile responsiveness of rats and rabbits to endogenous pyrogen

BERNHEIM. Comparison of febrile responsiveness of rats and rabbits to endogenous pyrogen. J. Appl. Physiol. 59(6): 1721-1725, 1985.-The fever responses of rats and rabbits were compared in detail using a single common source of semipuri-fied endogenous pyrogen prepared from human monocytes. The characteristics and dynamics of the fever-response curves for each species were examined and their dose-response curves were determined and compared. The fevers displayed by rats were qualitatively similar to those of rabbits, but, typically, they developed and terminated more rapidly than those of rabbits. Rabbits were much more sensitive to the endogenous pyrogen than rats. The threshold dose of pyrogen required to elicit a fever was 5 times lower in the rabbit, and the slope of the rabbit’s dose-response curve was 1.5 times steeper than that of the rat. The maximum fevers attainable in rabbits wer