Studies on Experimental Chagas' Disease in Mice in Relation to Chemotherapeutic Testing

Abstract

The empirical approach to the discovery of new compounds active against Trypanosoma cruzi necessitates extensive in vivo screening. Experimental Chagas' disease in mice is commonly used in such work, but little detailed information on the use of this infection in chemotherapeutic testing has been published. In all of the earlier work, reviewed by Stein (1933), as well as in more recent investigations (Jarpa et al. 1949, 1950 a, b; Goodwin et al. 1950) the blood of infected animals has been used as inoculum. The growth of T. cruzi in culture, however, has considerably simplified the preparation of quantities of homogeneous inoculum required for the infection of large numbers of animals. It is the purpose of this article to report certain observations on the course of experimental Chagas' disease in mice, induced with cultural inocula, and to describe methods for the chemotherapeutic testing of new compounds for activity against this infection.