248 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



plant, without actual contact ; and (5) the appearance of the rash is 

 often on an area untouched by the plant. 



Bacterial cultures made from the leaves of the trees showed several 

 types of cocci and bacilli ; one short thick bacillus, about 3 to 4/a by 2/a, 

 was apparently constant on all leaves examined, especially on the 

 under surfaces. Growth was abundant on potato, but not on agar, 

 gelatin or in broth. Inoculation of pure cultures in the skin produced 

 slight redness after forty-eight hours, but without additional symptoms. 



Further research along these lines is indicated. 



Morphia Injector's Septicaemia (Whitmore's Disease).* — A. C. 

 Stevenson writes as follows on the bacteriology of Whitmore's disease 

 — " Amongst, and in the leucocytes in the alveoli, small beaded bacilli 

 are seen. They do not retain Gram's stain, nor are they acid-fast. 

 Their length and the number of beads in them vary considerably. 

 When cultivated on ordinary media they appear as short rods, with 

 generally two dark staining dots in them ; on salt agar they grow into 

 long filaments. They are motile in the early stages of culture, but this 

 soon disappears. 



" Inoculation into guinea-pigs invariably leads to a fatal result with 

 the formation of nodules. If only a small dose is used, ^ to 1 minim 

 of an eighteen hours' broth culture, intraperitoneally, enlargement and 

 inflammation of the testicle is got, as in Strauss' sign in glanders, in 

 about thirty-six hours. With large doses death ensues too quickly. 

 Guinea-pigs are also capable of infection by feeding with cultures." 



Bubonic Plague in England.f — A. E. Short reports two certain 

 cases and one probable case of bubonic plague arising in England, 

 which were treated last August at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Two 

 of the cases were confirmed in diagnosis by the usual bacteriological 

 methods. Two of the patients and the father of the third worked in a 

 rag factory, full of rats and fleas. Plague bacilH were demonstrated in 

 a rat found dead in the factory. In discussing the portal of entry of 

 the infection, the possibility of deliberate infection by the agent of a 

 hostile country is suggested. 



Pseudo-Tubercle in Guinea-pigs.J — R. Van Sacegham, during the 

 course of an epizootic of pseudo-tubercle among guinea-pigs, succeeded 

 in immunizing the animals against virulent cultures of Bacillus pseudo- 

 tuberculosis rodentium. He cites certain similar results obtained in 1912 

 by the late Major Sydney Rowland, R.A.M.C., in which the immunity 

 to pseudo- tubercle was associated with immunity to B. pestis infection. 

 From this the author wonders if vaccination with pseudo-tubercle would 

 protect human beings against plague infection. [In his later work, how- 

 ever, Rowland showed that the immunity only applied to " laboratory," 

 and not to " body " strains of B. pestis.^ 



* Trans. Soc. Trop. Med. and Hyg., ix. (1916) pp. 218-9. 



t Brit. Med. Journ, ii. (1916) p. 327. 



X C.B. Soc. Biol. Paris, Ixxx. (1916) pp. 908-9. 



