490 THE SPIROCHETES 



the blood of these cases a leptospira which he called L. pyrogenes. The disease he 

 designated Spirochetosis febrilis. Soon afterward similar leptospiras were seen by 

 Kouwenaar' in the urine of patients, and Baermann^ isolated a number of strains 

 and subjected them to serological study. There proved to be at least two serological 

 types, one more or less closely related to L. icterohaemorrhagiae, the other allied 

 rather to a strain which had been isolated from rats in Holland. Neither type was 

 related to the hebdomadis. None of the strains was particularly virulent for guinea 

 pigs, being able to infect only very young animals. The experimental infection, like 

 the human one, is seldom fatal, and jaundice occurs only after many passages in 

 guinea pigs. 



Leptospira sp. ? — Prausnitz and Lubinski^ found a leptospira in the blood of 

 patients during an outbreak of acute febrile disease which affected thousands of per- 

 sons in the inundated districts along the river Oder in Silesia in the summer of 1926. 

 The disease is known as Schlammfieber, and is characterized by sudden onset, high 

 fever lasting five to seven days, intense pains — especially in the legs — rash, conjunc- 

 tivitis, mild angina, left shift of leukocytes, and slight albuminuria. Usually there 

 is a relapse. The course is benign, there is no jaundice, but convalescence is slow. 

 Field workers standing in flooded places are chiefly attacked. Insects are not sus- 

 pected of carrying the infection. The authors found a leptospira in the blood of the 

 patients but could not transmit the disease to animals. The disease resembles nanu- 

 kavami of Japan, but until the organism is identified it may be regarded as a distinct 

 species. 



Leptospira hemoglobinuriae. — This organism was observed by Schiiffner-i and 

 Snijders in Deli in 191 8 in the blood of a patient with a disease resembling black- 

 water fever. 



Leptospira bUiohemoglobinuriae. — This organism was described but not obtained 

 in cultures by Blan chard and Lefrou,^ who found it in the blood in three cases of 

 hemoglobinuria with jaundice in Europeans in the French Congo in 1922. Thomson^' 

 studied a large number of cases of black-water fever in East Africa but without find- 

 ing any leptospira. 



Leptospira interrogans {syn. L. icteroides) (Figs. 1 19-21). — Stimson,^ in 1907, ob- 

 served, in the Levaditi-stained sections of the kidney of a patient who had died of 

 yellow fever in New Orleans during the great epidemic of 1905 an organism which he 

 called S pirochaeta ? interrogans because of its peculiar hooked ends. In 1918 a lepto- 

 spira was isolated by the writer in Guayaquil,* Ecuador, from blood or postmortem 



1 Kouwenaar: Acad. Proefschr. Amsterdam, 1924. 



2 Baermann, G.: Geneesk. Tijdschr. Nederl.- Indie, 63, 885. 1923. 



3 Prausnitz, C, and Lubinski,: Klin. Wchnschr., 5, 2052. 1926. 

 ■t Schiiffner, W.: Geneesk. Tijdschr. Nederl. -Indie, 58, 352. 1918. 



s Blanchard, M., and Lefrou, G.: Bull. Soc. path. e.xoL, 15, 699. 1922. 

 ^Thomson, J. G.: Liverpool Sch. Trop. Med., "Research Memoir Series," 6, 1924. 

 'Stimson, A. M.: loc. cil. 



8 Noguchi, H.: /. Exper. Med.. 29, 547-96. 1919; 30, 1-29, 87-107, 401. 1919; 31, 135-68. 1920; 

 32, 381. 1920. 



