BARTONELLA BACILLIFORMIS 903 



emphasizes, that many of the strains that have been isolated by various workers, and 

 have been given the description summarized earlier, were Vibrio alkaligenes, not Bacterium 

 alkaligenes. 



It is worth noting that, as pointed out by Conn (1942), failure to produce 

 acid in a glucose medium may be due either (1) to non-fermentation, or (2) to 

 utilization of the glucose so completely that there are no by-products capable 

 of giving an acid reaction except COj, which, in a buffered medium, will not be 

 detected. 



Bartonella, Eperythrozoon, and Grahamella 



Various bodies have been described by different workers in close association 

 with the red blood corpuscles of man and animals suffering usually, though 

 not always, from certain types of anaemia. The evidence that Bartonella and 

 Eferythrozoon are living reproducible micro-organisms capable of giving rise under 

 favourable conditions to disease is now very strong, but considerably less is known 

 about the Grahamella, though there is increasing reason to believe that these 

 bodies also are definite bacteria. The interest that Bartonella muris particularly 

 has stimulated of recent years is due to the remarkable part played by the spleen in 

 the normal defence mechanism of the host (see Chapter 79). 



8onie authors regard the organism causing human Oroya fever as generically 

 distinct from the organisms responsible for infective anaemia of animals. They 

 would classify the first as Bartonella, the remainder as Hcemobartonella. The 

 distinctions between them are summarized as follows. Bartonella, besides invading 

 red blood corpuscles, is able to develop in fixed tissue cells and to cause a skin 

 eruption ; it is moreover insusceptible to arsenic preparations. Hremobartonella, 

 on the other hand, is said not to grow outside the blood, it rarely produces disease 

 without removal of the spleen, and the disease it causes is influenced by arseno- 

 therapy (see Weinman 1944). Whether these differences are sufficient to justify 

 the establishment of a separate genus for the animal bartonellse is very doubtful, 

 and for the present we shall group them all under the one genus Bartonella. Though 

 we shall refer to only three species of Bartonella, it may be mentioned that numerous 

 other species have been described, infecting guinea-pigs, voles, squirrels, hamsters, 

 opossums, cattle, buffaloes, and other animals. For a review of Bartonella and 

 Eperythrozoon the reader is referred to the monograph by Weinman (1944). 



Bartonella baeilIi!ormis. 



This organism is a small bacillus, which invades the red blood cells, and is responsible 

 for Peruvian Oroya fever and for verruga peruana (see Chapter 79). It was called 

 Bartonella bacilliformis by Strong and his colleagues (1915) in honour of Barton, who was 

 one of the first to observe the bacillus in the red cells. Noguchi and Battistini in 1926 

 cultivated the organism, and reproduced a disease in monkeys bearing a close resemblance 

 to the natiu-al disease in human beings. The organism was recovered in pure culture 

 from the blood of the injected monkeys. 



Morphologically, in culture, it is a small pleomorphic bacillus, varjring in length from 

 0-3-2-5 /* and in breadth from less than 0-2 to as much as 0-5 /i. Dumb-bell forms pre- 

 dominate, and coccoid forms are common. It is arranged singly and in dense masses. 

 It is motile, Gram-negative, and stains reddish-violet with Giemsa. Cultivation can be 

 effected on a variety of media, such as the semi-solid serum haemoglobin agar medium 

 used for leptospirse, or a blood glucose cystine agar (Jimenez 1940), or a 2 per cent, proteose 

 agar to which 25 per cent, of fresh defibrinated blood or serum from the rabbit or sheep 

 is added, together with 0-2 per cent, of an ascorbic acid glutathione solution (Geiman 

 1941). Though a high proportion of natural animal protein favours growth, it does not 



