TWELFTH ANNUAL REPORT 19 



factor in the infant mortality of all tropical countries. In a 



study of an epidemic of infantile dysentery in 1908, an unde- 

 ftcribed bacillu.s of the f:o\i group, not Bacillus dysenteric, was 

 found to be the causative organism. 



6. Taherculosis. — This disease constitutes one of the most 

 important medical problems among the Filipinos. The incidence 

 of infection has been more accurately determined by several 

 medical surveys conducted by this Bureau than could be done by 

 *nfr -^a'i.stics of hospital clinics. The pathology of various kinds 

 of tuberculosis, notably of rare tvpes suchi as adrenal tuber- 

 culosis, has been studied. Certain specific treatments of tuber- 

 culosis have been tested, and experiments in the attempt to 

 immunize against tuberculosis with a virulent strains of Bacillus 

 tuberculosis have resulted negatively. Recent studies of tuber- 

 cular infections are described on page 47. 



7. Leprosy. — The first cultivation of an organism from leprous 

 tissue by this Bureau, even if it should prove not to be the 

 specific organism of leprosy, has been the starting point of the 

 extensive cultivation and experimental studies of leprosy now 

 in progress all over the world. An investigation is now in 

 progress with special reference to classifying those organisms 

 cultivated from leprous tissue by different authors and to the 

 deteraiination of their etiologic relationship to leprosy. Studies 

 on the cutaneous reaction in leprosy, as a method of diagr.o^ig 

 of the disease, as practiced in tuberculosis, and of the treatme:.: 

 of leprosy with a vaccine prepared from an organism cultivated 

 from lepro.sy. and with certain chemicals, have been made. 



8. Efitarnoebic dysentery is a disease of universal distribution 

 in the tropics and subtropics. and one which causes much sick- 

 ness and death of white men. It was vei^' prevalent in the 

 Philippines in the early years of the American occupation, and, 

 although sanitation has decreased its prevalence, it is still by 

 no means uncommon. Its importance in the Philippines has led 

 to much investigation of its etiology, diagnosis, pathology, and 

 treatment. Recent morphological and experimental investiga- 

 tions carried on in this Bureau have determined once for all the 

 specific entamoeba concenied in the production of this disease, 

 and have supplied information for the accurate laboratory' diag- 

 nosis and for the scientific control of entamoebic dysentery. 

 It has been detei*mined that the entamoeba causing dysentery 

 lives only in the intestine of man, that ever>- case of entamcebic 

 dysenter\' is contracted from some other case of dysenter>'. and 

 that it cannot be contracted from water or uncooked vegetables 



