tOO SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



the haemolytic and haemoagglutinating action of the toxins against the 



red cells of the guinea-pig, rabbit, sheep, horse and ox are not to be 

 distinguished. 



A.ctive immunity conferred on guinea-pigs against a certain strain 

 of B. chauvaei (" Jouan ") protected the animals against the toxic 

 effects of soluble toxins derived from various strains of B. chauvaei and 

 B. cedematis maligni, and such anti-toxic serum conferred passive 

 immunity against various strains of the two organisms. The strum of 

 animals inoculated with one type of organisms moreover possessed an 

 an ti -infectious action against all strains of both organisms used. 



Leprosy and Kedrowsky*s Bacillus.* — H. Fraser and W. Fletcher, 

 working in the Federated Malay States with leprous tissue derived from 

 a series of fifty-two cases of non-ulcerating, nodular leprosy, are unable 

 to confirm the observations of Kedrowsky and Bayon respectively, with 

 regard to the cultivation of the Bacillus leprae in vitro. The leprous 

 nodules selected were excised with sterile precautions and small pieces 

 inoculated in placental agar, fish medium, or other medium in which 

 Bacillus leprae is said to develop, but in no single instance in which 

 contamination was strictly excluded did any growth arise. In the 

 earlier experiments it was not infrequent to get cultures of 'contaniin- 

 'ating organisms, diphtheroids, streptothrices and the like, but such 

 contaminations were avoidable with an improvement in technique. 



Experiments carried out with a culture of Kedrowsky's original 

 organism, and a strain of Kedrowsky's organism supplied by Bayon 

 (claimed to be identical with his own strain) were responsible for certain 

 atypical lesions in the guinea-pig. These lesions differed in no material 

 respect from those obtained by inoculating such animals with cultures 

 of the Timothygrass Bacillus (B. phlei), the smegma bacillus or Babino- 

 witch's butter bacillus. The conclusion is thus arrived at that there is 

 no evidence that the acid-fast bacillus of Kedrowsky and Bayon is, in 

 fact, the leprosy bacillus. 



Etiological Factor in Cerebro-spinal Fever.* — B. Donaldson, from 

 a study of the bacteriological findings in a series of cases of cerebro- 

 spinal fever, has come to some very remarkable conclusions with regard 

 to the etiology of this disease. 



A meat variety of bacterial forms were discerned by him, both from 

 direct examination and from growth on various media, these appear- 

 ances being characterized as club-shaped, pear-shaped, point-of- 

 exclamation shaped Gram-positive bacilli, small diplo-bacilli — resembling 

 Hoffmann's bacillus — and Gram-positive cocci occurring in pairs or 

 singly with occasional Gram-negative rods and cocci. Some of the 

 forms met with appeared to be identical with the Klebs-Loeffler 

 bacillus. 



It is suggested that the causal organism of cerebro-spinal fever is a 

 diphtheroid rod closely related to the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus and ex- 

 hibiting extreme pleomorphism. The typical form — a Gram-negative 



* Lancet (1915) ii. pp. 13-16. + Lancet (1915) i. pp. 1333-7. 



