1 r\ viewed it was another case report — albeit of a disease not so 

 common. But two discoveries lay in it. A leptothrix as cause 

 of this eye disease had previously only been hinted at; and 

 except for Wherry's own achievement in this direction, none 

 had ever cultivated such organism in the laboratory. 



The patient was a red-eyed boy out of Victor Ray's ophthal- 

 mic clinic; and since he got well fairly quickly that would, 

 for most men, have been the end of the story. Ray noticed that 

 certain features of the disease made it stand forth from the 

 common run, and summoned Wherry. For one thing, it had 

 spread beyond the lids; and the lymph glands in front of the 

 ear had abscessed (as in tularense infection) . The details coin- 

 cided with that form of chronic conjunctivitis which Parinaud 

 had described in 1889. No cause for it had ever been found. 

 Such had been described but as commonly denied. Verhoeff 

 had made the only solid contribution to the subject when he 

 recognized as constantly present in the human tissues "a 

 minute filamentous organism." But he had not succeeded in 

 growing it outside. In Ray's example of the disease none of the 

 commonly responsible organismal causes of inflammation in 

 the eyes was doing the mischief, that was certain. Attempts 

 merely to stain any kind of microorganism in smears and 

 scrapings by six different methods failed in Wherry's hands. 

 Also, he could grow nothing on all manner of laboratory 

 media. Then he inoculated some guinea pigs and rabbits (to 

 see if tuberculosis might be present) but they showed no 

 symptoms of disease. Whereafter he scratched the infectious 

 material into the eyelids of a mouse. It developed eye signs 

 similar to those in the boy. From it, Wherry translated the 

 disease to two other animals; and then from these he succeeded 

 in cultivating a microorganism. His success came through 

 application of the principles for growth that he had so long 

 and so often stressed — a proper medium (egg-yolk) and 

 proper atmosphere (partial tension or no oxygen at all). At 

 a single stroke, as it were, he had both isolated and grown in 

 the laboratory an organism never before isolated and never 

 before grown (except by himself in the instance of Miller's 

 leptothrix) — a Leptothrix. Now he returned to the patient, 

 similarly to isolate and grow this organism out of the glandular 

 swellings of the boy himself. 



