EFFECT OF CORTICOIDS UPON EXPERIMENTAL LATHYRISM

LATHYRISM, a disease due to ingestion of excessive amounts of sweet pea seeds (Lathyrus odoratus) or allied species of lathyrus, has been known since the time of Hippocrates. Now, the malady is particularly prevalent in certain parts of India and Spain, where lathyrus seeds are commonly used as an inexpensive source of nourishment. It has also long been established that a form of lathyrism can be produced at will in various laboratory animals (rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, monekys, etc.) by feeding them sweet pea diets. Among the changes most characteristic of experimental lathyrism are: deformities of the bones, with multiple exostoses, hernias and dissecting aneurysms. The earlier literature on lathyrism in man and in experimental animals has been reviewed by Stockman (13) and Geiger et al. (4). Recently, interest in this singular condition has been greatly stimulated by the demonstration that the active principle, or principles, can be extracted from the sweet pea seeds (7), and that certain nitriles, particularly iS-aminopropionitrile, present in Lathyrus seeds, can reproduce the disease in animals (11, 14, 2). Aminoacetonitrile (AAN) is even more effective than j3-aminopropionitrile in producing lesions characteristic of lathyrism in mesenchymal tissues (14, 10).