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fectants being present in the throat or also of course the 

 possibillity of diphtheria bacilli being overlooked by the 

 laboratorium-examination. A repetition of the examination is 

 desirable in such cases and as a rule will make the continued 

 clinical observation correspond with the bacteriological exami- 

 nation. The great difficulties of the bacteriological diphtheria 

 diagnosis must not be looked for here. 



Secondly the question is raised daily, if in the throat or 

 nose of a person, who has suffered from diphtheria, diphtheria 

 bacilli are still present. This may be the case a long time, 

 but it would not be right to think that it is the rule. In the 

 larger majority of cases the bacilli are not to be found any 

 more soon after the clinical recovery. 



Then we get rather a large group of individuals, with whom 

 one or two weeks after the recovery diphtheria bacilli can still 

 be demonstrated, and there only remains a small minority, 

 with which after the time mentioned diphtheria bacilli can 

 still be diagnosed. 



If an individual had a clinically and bacteriologically diagnosed 

 diphtheria and if a short time after his clinical recovery bacteria 

 are still found, which according to our examination have to 

 be identified as diphtheria bacilli, we may diagnose without 

 making too great a mistake, that they are in reality diphtheria 

 bacilli. Here also the diphtheria-examiner is not running too 

 great a risk. 



If the time during which the bacilli are still found, gets 

 extraordinarly long and the difficulties caused by the measures 

 which have to be taken, gets greater, the time has come to 

 consider if the diagnosis of diphtheria is perhaps wrongly made 

 and so we get here a material, exceedingly fit for elaboration 

 in the smallest details of the methods of the bacteriological 

 diphtheria diagnosis. In this case there is no reason for special 

 hurry, because it does not matter very much, if the examination 

 takes a few days longer. 



We perform these continued examinations repeatedly, mostly 

 at the request of an impatient doctor'. We mostly find then 

 that the bacilli present answered to the greatest demands, 

 which we may put to a diphtheria bacillus and mostly they 

 are also virulent to guinea-pigs. As so many others we have 



