CORTISONE'S interference with wound healing has been well documented in experimental studies,1-3 but surgeons are not convinced that patients receiving cortisone suffer unduly from wound complications. That species differences may play a role is strongly suggested in the nice study of Shewell and Long4 who studied the effect of cortisone in six different animal species and found that there were two distinct groups: one group was sensitive to cortisone and one was not. Studying changes in body and organ weights, γ-globulin formation, and antibody production, they showed cortisone sensitivity in rabbits, ferrets, rats, and mice, but a refractoriness to cortisone in guinea pigs and rhesus monkeys. The species differences were clear cut and complete.
Because surgeons have often referred to a lack of cortisone effect in patients and because guinea pigs and monkeys do not respond to cortisone like the standard laboratory animals, a test of the cortisone