474 



THE BACTERIOPHAGE AND ITS BEHAVIOR 



The temperature chart of this patient is here given. 



From this chart we see that the blood culture taken on the 25th, when the tem- 

 perature was still above 38°C., was positive, and that within 2 or 3 days convales- 

 cence became established. This has been a common observation in all of our 

 cases; they have all showed the same thing. Every time that the blood has 

 yielded a typhoid bacillus and at the same time a bacteriophage active for the 

 typhoid bacillus (another strain) we have observed a very definite fall in the 

 temperature within a few days after the blood culture was taken. 



We know from common experience that blood cultures are sometimes positive, 

 sometimes negative, at the end of the second week, and especially during the third 

 week. Correlating the results obtained in the two groups of cases reported 

 above, those with, and those without positive blood cultures, we find that in- 

 variably before, or during, the fall in temperature a bacteriophage can be en- 

 countered in the blood stream. Unfortunately, we have not been able to procure 



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BI<od :ulture 



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Chart 21. Case Go. A Typhoid Fever 



The blood culture yielded both a bacteriophage and B. typhosus 



specimens of blood at the onset or during the incubation period of the disease, 

 because of circumstances beyond our control, chiefly the fact that patients do 

 not enter the hospital until late in the disease. 



As stated above such results appear paradoxical. It is quite logical to find 

 a bacteriophage in a negative blood culture, but it seems illogical to find it in the 

 positive blood culture cases as well. As a matter of fact, this contradiction is 

 more apparent than real, and the following observation, we believe, opens the 

 way to an explanation. 



In the case of the patient Hi , of whom we have spoken above, we find 



that the patient entered the hospital on the 3rd day of the disease, that on the 7th 

 day defervescence began, and that on the 11th day the blood was taken for exami- 

 nation. This blood culture was incubated, and daily examinations were made by 

 removing sterilely a drop of the culture, spreading it on a slide and staining it. 



