In another publication1 are described the effects on the lung of dogs produced by embolic and intrabronchial inoculation, employed separately and combined. It appeared that interaction of both of these portals of entry for organisms to the lung pertains to the pathogenesis of certain postoperative abscesses of the lung in man of obscure origin.
These experiments, moreover, emphasized the fact that abscess develops readily from embolic inoculation of the parenchyma of the lung, but with great difficulty, if at all, after intrabronchial implantation of the same infecting agents, although used in enormously larger quantity. This phenomenon is considered further in the present communication.
Others have called attention to the same circumstance. One explanation has been that embolism interferes with the blood supply of the part inoculated and lowers its resistance.2 Another reason, more generally given,3 is that material deposited in the tracheobronchial tract is quickly removed by