BY DR. OSCAR KATZ. 209 



the Germans), and provided the patients had succumbed before the 

 ulcerations of the small intestine had completely disappeared, or 

 before any such ulcerations were at all met with. The latter phe- 

 nomenon, I am told, is often observed in severe epidemics, when the 

 sick are carried off very rapidly. In a publication of recent 

 date on this subject, Fraenkel and Simmonds say (Zeitschr, f. 

 Hygiene, Bd. II., Heft 1, 1887, p. 138) that they have now come 

 to look upon the results of the bacteriological examination of the 

 abdominal viscera (spleen) as conclusive in all cases where the 

 macroscopical features of the abdominal organs are insufficient to 

 secure the anatomical diagnosis. They furnish a characteristic 

 instance where the clinical observation admitted of a diagnosis 

 other than typhoid, and also the result of the post mortem was in 

 no way decisive until the disclosure of typhoid-bacilli put an end 

 to every doubt. They give also as instance a striking illustration of 

 a case which clinically looked very much like typhoid, and for 

 which the post mortem failed to allow an undoubted answer as to its 

 nature, till consequent upon the absence of colonies of typhoid- 

 bacilli in gelatine-plates sown with spleen-pulp, this answer could 

 be given in a negative sense. 



I now wish to say some words about the results of experiments 

 made on dejecta from typhoid-patients with the view of finding, 

 and isolating the typhoid-bacilli. I have carried out a good 

 number of such experiments ; the evacuations coming from 

 patients in different stages of the disease were examined quite 

 fresh. Everybody who has made similar examinations knows 

 that the diseased intestines contain enormous masses of bacteria, 

 both in quantity and quality, and that for this reason only minute 

 parts of the raw-material should be started from. I generally 

 mixed a medium-sized platinum-loop full of the dejection with 

 about 10 ccm. of a -6 p.c. sterilised salt solution in a test-tube, 

 thence preparing two attenuations in nutritive gelatine by taking 

 about three platinum-loops each time. The contents of the second 



gelatine-tube afterwards proved to be mostly fit for examination. 

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