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PLAGUE AND SMALL MAMMALS.
JUBILEE OF THE FINSEN INSTITUTE.
1177
having been recorded to establish this fact century there was an epizootic of plague amongst beyond dispute. Seven of 42 cases of inoperable field rodents in Essex followed by a few human cases. cancer of the cervix have been cured in Frankl’s In India outbreaks have occasionally been reported dinique, while he reports that 58-8 per cent. of cases amongst field-mice on the threshing floors around subjected to ray treatment subsequent to operation infected villages. Comparatively little is known about have remained well after a period of five years. In the extent and duration of these outbreaks amongst the treatment of haemorrhage from the uterus due field-rats, but in the light of recent work done by to the presence of myomata or unconnected with Kunhardt and Chitre it is safe to say that provided obvious signs of disease the rays act upon the folli- climatic conditions are favourable for flea-breeding cular elements in the ovary, and by destroying these and the mean temperature does not remain for long bring about a cessation of the ovarian secretion and below 50 °F., the disease will be kept alive by the Just as small doses may abortive epizootic that occurs at the commencement so produce amenorrhoea. have a stimulating effect upon the cells of a malignant of the colder weather. In these conditions the disease growth, so they may stimulate the follicular epithe- will spread like an ulcer, healing in the middle but lium of the ovary, and it has been suggested therefore always creeping further afield at the edges. When the that they might be employed in the treatment of non-spreading or quiescent period of the year (preobstinate amenorrhoea. sumably the cold weather) approaches, active maniBoth these lectures are included in a very full festation will remain in abeyance, but will commence report which appears in the Dublin Journal of ?tledical again where it ceased as soon as favourable climatic Science for November. conditions return. Dr. Haydon points out that any e measures for getting rid of these small mammals are JUBILEE OF THE FINSEN INSTITUTE. extremely difficult to carry out ; the best results have, A FEW weeks ago the Finsen Institute in Copenhagen he says, been obtained with carbon bisulphide. We ,celebrated a double event-its 25-year jubilee, and the would point out that no measure yet designed for the of rodents is anything like so satisopening of an annexe for the light treatment of surgical extermination tuberculosis. Some conception of the size and import- factory as the epizootic of plague itself. Taking into account the scattered nature of the population, the ance of this Institute can be gleaned from the following right course would appear to be (1) to warn the people The staff 168 and includes 22 figures. doctors, nurses, 84 other employees ; the annexe for surgical tuber- of the danger of sitting about on the ground, particulosis has cost three million kroner, accommodates cularly if rat-burrows are plentiful; and (2) to push 145 in-patients, and is equipped for the daily treatment the ordinary inoculation against plague in order to of 150 patients. Niels Finsen’s hope that light save the lives of the human beings who, in spite of treatment could be extended to deep-seated disease, warning, expose themselves to the danger of infection the course of their daily work. Whether or no the notably heart disease, was not realised in his life-time, in disease will die out amongst the small mammalsof but his successors have kept his aims in view, and in 1913 they began that treatment of surgical tuberculosis the countryside depends largely on climatic conditions with carbon arc light which has now come into general of which our knowledge is very incomplete. cases
____
use
at the Institute.
____
PLAGUE AND SMALL MAMMALS. ANTIHÆMORRHAGIC SERUM. PLAGUE was imported into coastal towns of South IT is a characteristic peculiar to medical discoveries Africa many years ago, but as little or no manifesta- that they nearly always have their origin in some tion of the disease was reported for some years, it was chance clinical observation. To this M,11. Dufour and hoped that the infection had died out. Quite recently Le Hello owe the discovery of an antihaemorrhagic " an entirely new series of outbreaks have been occurring serum which they have named " Anthema which they far remote from In his inland and towns. interesting credit with a hypercoagulant property, particularly paper in our last issue, Dr. L. G. Haydon, assistant rapid and responding to the most urgent and serious health officer for the Union of South Africa, set out requirements which are so constantly met with in clearly the peculiarities of these outbreaks-viz., medical and surgical practice. In a communication 1) they" were confined to a scattered rural population ; to the Progres Medical of July 16th, 1921, they relate (2) no domestic " rats could be found in the farms ; the case of a young woman admitted into the Broussais and (3) the time-intervals between the small groups of Hospital with purpura heemorrhagica, epistaxis, and cases showed that they were not closely connected gingival and uterine hemorrhages. The usual antito each other. These new manifestations could not at hsemorrhagic remedies were applied without success. first be brought into line with the ordinary epidemio- She had in particular several injections of antilogy of plague, which requires flea-infested rats living in diphtheritic horse serum which seemed without effect. the same house with human beings; consequently it when some days after the last injection the temperature was necessary to look round for some other agent in rose suddenly to 40’ C., and a generalised erythema disseminating the disease. After long and careful made its appearance. At the same time the hmmorinvestigation into the fauna of the infected parts of rhages ceased. Five days later they recurred and the country it was discovered that two varieties of another injection of the serum was given, followed by smaller mammals, which lived in numbers in the fields, fresh local reaction, urticarial eruption, and rise of were extensively infected with the disease-namely, temperature. At the same time, as in the first instance. the gerbille (Tatera lobengulae) and the maltimammate the hxmorrhages stopped, but this time permanently. mouse (Rattus coucha), animals living in close contact These facts led the authors to think that the voluntary with each other and the commonest of the animals production of these phenomena would be able to give captured for identification. The human cases of plague rise to a well-defined humoral property--namely. were confined to people who lived in the open and hypercoagulability. Its realisation, however, seemed followed an agricultural or pastoral occupation : in z, difficult. To obtain such an immediate effect as is one case a history was elicited of having taken meals i necessary in h2emorrhages, it is not a question of the sitting on the ground riddled with burrows of these z, direct development in the patients of an anaphylactic animals. state by excessive injection of serum, since it is well Dr. Haydon’s short communication is of great known that anaphylactic sensitisation requires a importance. It shows that the chain of infection to certain period of incubation for its production. But the human being is in reality the same in both town the patients can profit by the advantage that can be and’ country ; in the latter case two small rodents, obtained from passive anaphylaxis by the injection very similar in habit to the field-mouse, are the of serum from a sensitised animal. Anthema is responsible agent for disseminating the virus ; in the the serum of rabbits which have had, at intervals town, the "domestic " black and grey rat perform this which have been regulated by experience, several very function. Similar epidemics have been reported from small successive intravenous injections of horse serum. other parts of the world. In the early part of this The animals are bled 21 days after the first injection,
1177
having been recorded to establish this fact century there was an epizootic of plague amongst beyond dispute. Seven of 42 cases of inoperable field rodents in Essex followed by a few human cases. cancer of the cervix have been cured in Frankl’s In India outbreaks have occasionally been reported dinique, while he reports that 58-8 per cent. of cases amongst field-mice on the threshing floors around subjected to ray treatment subsequent to operation infected villages. Comparatively little is known about have remained well after a period of five years. In the extent and duration of these outbreaks amongst the treatment of haemorrhage from the uterus due field-rats, but in the light of recent work done by to the presence of myomata or unconnected with Kunhardt and Chitre it is safe to say that provided obvious signs of disease the rays act upon the folli- climatic conditions are favourable for flea-breeding cular elements in the ovary, and by destroying these and the mean temperature does not remain for long bring about a cessation of the ovarian secretion and below 50 °F., the disease will be kept alive by the Just as small doses may abortive epizootic that occurs at the commencement so produce amenorrhoea. have a stimulating effect upon the cells of a malignant of the colder weather. In these conditions the disease growth, so they may stimulate the follicular epithe- will spread like an ulcer, healing in the middle but lium of the ovary, and it has been suggested therefore always creeping further afield at the edges. When the that they might be employed in the treatment of non-spreading or quiescent period of the year (preobstinate amenorrhoea. sumably the cold weather) approaches, active maniBoth these lectures are included in a very full festation will remain in abeyance, but will commence report which appears in the Dublin Journal of ?tledical again where it ceased as soon as favourable climatic Science for November. conditions return. Dr. Haydon points out that any e measures for getting rid of these small mammals are JUBILEE OF THE FINSEN INSTITUTE. extremely difficult to carry out ; the best results have, A FEW weeks ago the Finsen Institute in Copenhagen he says, been obtained with carbon bisulphide. We ,celebrated a double event-its 25-year jubilee, and the would point out that no measure yet designed for the of rodents is anything like so satisopening of an annexe for the light treatment of surgical extermination tuberculosis. Some conception of the size and import- factory as the epizootic of plague itself. Taking into account the scattered nature of the population, the ance of this Institute can be gleaned from the following right course would appear to be (1) to warn the people The staff 168 and includes 22 figures. doctors, nurses, 84 other employees ; the annexe for surgical tuber- of the danger of sitting about on the ground, particulosis has cost three million kroner, accommodates cularly if rat-burrows are plentiful; and (2) to push 145 in-patients, and is equipped for the daily treatment the ordinary inoculation against plague in order to of 150 patients. Niels Finsen’s hope that light save the lives of the human beings who, in spite of treatment could be extended to deep-seated disease, warning, expose themselves to the danger of infection the course of their daily work. Whether or no the notably heart disease, was not realised in his life-time, in disease will die out amongst the small mammalsof but his successors have kept his aims in view, and in 1913 they began that treatment of surgical tuberculosis the countryside depends largely on climatic conditions with carbon arc light which has now come into general of which our knowledge is very incomplete. cases
____
use
at the Institute.
____
PLAGUE AND SMALL MAMMALS. ANTIHÆMORRHAGIC SERUM. PLAGUE was imported into coastal towns of South IT is a characteristic peculiar to medical discoveries Africa many years ago, but as little or no manifesta- that they nearly always have their origin in some tion of the disease was reported for some years, it was chance clinical observation. To this M,11. Dufour and hoped that the infection had died out. Quite recently Le Hello owe the discovery of an antihaemorrhagic " an entirely new series of outbreaks have been occurring serum which they have named " Anthema which they far remote from In his inland and towns. interesting credit with a hypercoagulant property, particularly paper in our last issue, Dr. L. G. Haydon, assistant rapid and responding to the most urgent and serious health officer for the Union of South Africa, set out requirements which are so constantly met with in clearly the peculiarities of these outbreaks-viz., medical and surgical practice. In a communication 1) they" were confined to a scattered rural population ; to the Progres Medical of July 16th, 1921, they relate (2) no domestic " rats could be found in the farms ; the case of a young woman admitted into the Broussais and (3) the time-intervals between the small groups of Hospital with purpura heemorrhagica, epistaxis, and cases showed that they were not closely connected gingival and uterine hemorrhages. The usual antito each other. These new manifestations could not at hsemorrhagic remedies were applied without success. first be brought into line with the ordinary epidemio- She had in particular several injections of antilogy of plague, which requires flea-infested rats living in diphtheritic horse serum which seemed without effect. the same house with human beings; consequently it when some days after the last injection the temperature was necessary to look round for some other agent in rose suddenly to 40’ C., and a generalised erythema disseminating the disease. After long and careful made its appearance. At the same time the hmmorinvestigation into the fauna of the infected parts of rhages ceased. Five days later they recurred and the country it was discovered that two varieties of another injection of the serum was given, followed by smaller mammals, which lived in numbers in the fields, fresh local reaction, urticarial eruption, and rise of were extensively infected with the disease-namely, temperature. At the same time, as in the first instance. the gerbille (Tatera lobengulae) and the maltimammate the hxmorrhages stopped, but this time permanently. mouse (Rattus coucha), animals living in close contact These facts led the authors to think that the voluntary with each other and the commonest of the animals production of these phenomena would be able to give captured for identification. The human cases of plague rise to a well-defined humoral property--namely. were confined to people who lived in the open and hypercoagulability. Its realisation, however, seemed followed an agricultural or pastoral occupation : in z, difficult. To obtain such an immediate effect as is one case a history was elicited of having taken meals i necessary in h2emorrhages, it is not a question of the sitting on the ground riddled with burrows of these z, direct development in the patients of an anaphylactic animals. state by excessive injection of serum, since it is well Dr. Haydon’s short communication is of great known that anaphylactic sensitisation requires a importance. It shows that the chain of infection to certain period of incubation for its production. But the human being is in reality the same in both town the patients can profit by the advantage that can be and’ country ; in the latter case two small rodents, obtained from passive anaphylaxis by the injection very similar in habit to the field-mouse, are the of serum from a sensitised animal. Anthema is responsible agent for disseminating the virus ; in the the serum of rabbits which have had, at intervals town, the "domestic " black and grey rat perform this which have been regulated by experience, several very function. Similar epidemics have been reported from small successive intravenous injections of horse serum. other parts of the world. In the early part of this The animals are bled 21 days after the first injection,