Review of recent bacteriology

J~,~

Review o{ Recent Bacteriology

759

REVIEW OF RECENT BACTERIOLOGY. EXTEmC

FEVER

WITHOUT

I.~ESTi~Xn

LESlONS.--Ophfils r records

the case of a m a n , aged twenty-four, who died with enteric fever and in whom no evidence of any intestinal lesion was found postmortem. The blood during life gave Widal's reaction vcith a dilution of 1 : 40, and the urine gave a diazo reaction. At the post-mortem 9 examination the mucous rqembrans of t h e intestines appeared to be normal throughout ; there were small hmmorrhages into the submucous tissue of the stomach and bladder, and enlargement of the lymphatic glands at the root of the mesentery. There were also pulmonary complications. 'Cultures of the Bacillus typlwsus and Bacillus coli communis were obtained from the spleen. E.XTEI~mSEPTm.§ describes two cases of this form of septicmmia, both occurring in pregnant women. In the first case, the woman miscarried in the fifth month of her pregnancy, and came under treg,tment a few days later with symptoms of peritonitis. On the twentieth day after the miscarriage it was found that the blood gave Widal's reaction, and from blood dr~wn from the finger a pure culture of the12acillus typhosus was grown. Death occurred twelve days later, and at the post-mortem examination recently cicatrized ulcers were found on the small intestine, together with evidence of ulcerative cndocarditis, pelvic peritonitis, and endometritis. The Bacillus typlwsus was isolated from the pelvic exudation and from some pus which was present in the uterus. The other case was one of a woman who w a s admitted into hospital si~ days after what had apparently been a natural confinement. Some blood drawn from the finger gave Widal's reaction, but proved sterile on incubation. F o u r days l~ter a second examination of the blood was made, resulting in the isolation of a culture of the Bacillus tyl~hosus. The patient died on the sixteenth day after her confinement, and at the post-mortem examination characteristic ulcers were found in the small intestine. There had also been suppuration in one of the sterno-chondral articulations, and from the pus here cultures of the Bacillus typhosus and Str~l~tococcus 2yogcncs were obtained. No " r o s e spots" were observed during the course of either of these cases, and the clinical diagnos!s was uncertain until settled by Widal's reaction. THE BXCTE~mL0~Y OF VXCCiNE LY-~/uL - - Under the somewhat cumbrous name of Bacillus variabilis lym2hce vaccinalis, Nakanishi ,~ describes an organism which he has found to be almost constantly present in vaccine pustules on man and calves. The bacillus resembles generally the Klebs-LSfiier diphtheria bacillus, and even more strongly resembles the so-called pseudo-diphtheria bacillus. It is markedly pleomorphic, and several morphological varieties measuring from ~ to 189 in length and from 88to 89 in breadth are described. The bacillus is decolourized when' treated by Gram's method, b u t stains well with the ordinary aniline dyes. I t grows well at. blood-heat, and rather less freely as a rule at 9.2~ (3. ; cultures were grown on L5ffler's blood/scrum and the ordinarylaboratory media. I t does not exhibit motility. Nakanishi thinks that Klein's Bacilhts xerosis variolcc and Bacillus

The New York Medical Journal, May 12th, 1900. Archives de ller 2~x2~r. et d'Anat. Path., 1'~ s~ric, tome xii., p. 357, 1900. Centralblat~f. l~a~'t, und l~ l~d. xxvii., lqos. 18, 19, 1900.

760

Review of Recent Bacteriology

[Pubncao~mt

albus variol(e* are really varieties of the pleomorphic Bacillus variabilis. PYOoYANEUS IN~'EC~:IO.~.--Cases of general infection by Bacillus pyo. cyancus are, if one may judge by recorded cases, extremely rare in man. Probably the first case recorded was that described by hfonnier,t and another case recorded by Blum~ has lately been referred to in these pages. A case similar to the latter is recorded by Lion~ as having occurred in an adult. The case was that of a woman who died after an illness which had lasted six or seven weeks, and had been diagnosed as acute .rheumatic fever with endocarditis. After death vegetations were found on the pulmonary valves, and from these vegetations both l~acillus l~yocyaneus and some " p a r a - c o l i " bacteria were isolated; the former bacillus was also isolated from the heartblood and from the spleen. The tricuspid, mitral, and aortic valves were healthy. A N~w PaT~OaE,~m Svonorimtx.~Heektoen]] at the Congress of American Physicians (1900) described a new pathogenic fungus. A boy had received a punctured wound of the finger caused by a rusty nail ; several nodules appeared around the wound, and later along the forearm and arm. :From these nodules as the), broke down from time to time cultures of a sporothrix were constantly isolated. The sporothrix appeared in colonies, in each of which spore-bearing threads radiated outwards from a central mass of mycelium. The fungus was fatal when injected into the peritoneal cavity of the rat, and was capable of causing a coagulation necrosis. In the discussion on the paper, Simon Flexner sai~ that the sporothrix when injected into mice caused a general enlargement of the lymphatic glands, which was followed by a septic~mi~. Hecktoen, however, said that this was not so in his experiments. STI{EPTOCOCCUS Pt'OGENES IN IMPETIGO Co,~ra(~IOSX.--Gilchrist,82in a paper on the bacteriology of various vesicular and pustular diseases of the skin, gives the results of the examination of seventeen cases of impetigo contagiosa. I n everycase Streptococcus pyogenes was present, in pure culture in ten, associated with Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus in the other seven. Whenever mixed cultures were obtained, the streptococcus was at least one hundred times as numerous as the staphylococcus. The streptococcus isolated from these cases was one of very low virulence for mice and rabbits, and in this respect was no~ to be compared with certain other varieties, such as that obtained from cases of erysipelas. P~su.~mcocctc A~THRIrIs.--Two cases of infection of joints by the pnemnococcus have recently been reported at the Soei6t6 M~dicale des H6pitaux. In the case recorded by Fernet and Lacap~re* * an osteoarthritis of the wrist-joint and tenosynovitis of the neighbouring 9~ Supplemen~ containing the :Bepor$ of the Medical Otticer, 1896-97, Local Government :Board. +. Infection Pyocyani~ue chez l'Itomme (Congr~s de l~I~dechlodo Bordeaux,

ls95). +~ "Ilevlew of :Recent Bacteriology," P~BL~C tIEALTH,VO1. xii., 56 (October, 1899). w Bulletins de la SocldN M~dlcale des Hd2itaux de Paris, 3~ s~rie, ]~{ay, 1900, p. 556. ] ~lIedical t~ecord, New York, May 12th, 1900. 82 Johns Ho2klns Hospital l~eports, vol. ix. ~* 23ulletins de la Socidld Mddicale des Ht;2)itaux de Paris, 3~ s~rie, May, 1900, p. 609.

:T.ly,x ~

Law Reports

761

muscles supervened on an attack o[ pneumonia. The pncumococeus was isolated from some serous effusion withdrawn from the joint. The other case was recorded by Rendu at the meeting of the society on June 1st, 1900.* In this instance arthritis of the sterne-clavicular and knee-joints appeared after pneumonia. I n purulent fluid withdrawn from the sterne-clavicular joint and in serous fluid from the knee-joint the pneumococcus was again identified.

LAW REPORTS. HIGH

COURT

OF

JUSTICE.

QUEEN'S BENCtI DIVISION. :BEFORE DARLING AND BUCKNILL, JJ.

Thursday, May 30th, 1900. MASOS V. COWDARY. This was an appeal by case stated .from the decision of justices of Bedfordshire dismissing an information under Section 6 of the Sale of :Food and Drugs Act, 1875, preferred by the appellant, an inspector under the Act, against :Ellen Cowdary, the respondent, charging her with selling, to the prejudice of the appellant, a d r u g - - t o wit, camphorated o i l - - w h i c h .was not of the nature, substance, and quahty of the drug demanded. The question in the case arose under Section 14 of t h e Act, which provides as follows: " Tim person purchasing the article with the intention of submitting the same to' analysis shall, after the purchase shall have bceu completed, . . . offer to divide the article into three parts to be then and there separated and each part to be marked and sealed or fastened up in such manner as its nature will permit, and shall, if required to do so, proceed accordingly, and shall deliver one of the parts to the seller or his agent." I t was proved before the justices that nn November 16th, 1899, the appellant purchased from the respondent, who keeps a small general shop, six 2d. bottles of camphorated oil. The oil was exposed for sale in bottles which were not, apparently, prepared by the respondent, but each of them bore a label with the name of a chemist in the neighbouring town of Luton upon it. There was no evidence whether the bottles were identical in character or appearance or whether or not the labels on all the bottles bore the name of the same chemist. The six bottles were all purchased at the same time. The appellant, having notified that he intended to have the oil analyzed, divided the six bottles into three lots of two bottles each, sealing each separate lot of two bottles in a separate bag. H e handed one of the sealed bags {o the respondent, taking away the other two sealed bags, one of which he subsequently forwarded to the public analyst, who found that the two bottles contained only 17"5 per cent. of camphor, whereas camphorated oil should contain at least 20 per cent. of 9camphor. The appellant did not open any or either of the bottles of camphorated oil or mix or divide the contents, and the two bottles

* La Presse Mddlcale, June 9th, 1900.