CONTINUOUS INTRAVENOUS CHEMOTHERAPY OF PLASMODIUM LOPHURAE INFECTION IN DUCKS

¹ From the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

1. A method incorporating a simple rotary injection pump is described for continuous intravenous administration of drugs to ducks infected with P. lophurae.

2. On the basis of dosage, quinine was more effective at the level of minimum therapeutic response when given intravenously in single daily doses than when given by continuous infusion; at a high level of response, the converse was true

3. At the level of minimum response, cinchonine was equally effective when given in single daily intravenous doses or continuously.

4. Tartar emetic, sodium antimony thioglycollate, and mapharsen were effective in doses at or near the toxic level.

5. Penicillin, streptomycin, and quitenine were inactive in the doses employed.

6. Summation of therapeutic response was shown by the following two combinations: quinine-cinchonine, and quinacrine-6-chloro-9-(2-diethylaminoethylamino)-2-methoxyacridine. No summation of response was exhibited by the following combinations: quinine-quinacrine, quinine-pamaquine, and quinacrine-pamaquine. These results suggest that quinine, quinacrine, and pamaquine each possess a different principal mechanism of drug action against P. lophurae in the duck.