20 BIOLOGY OF PNEUMOCOCCUS 



virulent cultures or infected blood. Encouraged by these results, 

 the authors applied the procedure to human beings but without 

 success. Incidentally, Foa and his colleague were among the first to 

 maintain virulence of the cocci by preserving the cultures in in- 

 fected blood in the cold and the dark. So also, Biondi, 117 in experi- 

 ments with Bacillus salivarius septicus (the Fraenkel or Sternberg 

 diplococcus in spite of the name), by chance noticed that rabbits 

 recovering from inoculation with weakened cultures became im- 

 mune. Biondi looked upon such attenuated cultures as true vac- 

 cines. Netter 971 accomplished the same result with the dried spleens 

 of animals dying from pneumococcal infection and with "old" 

 pleural exudate containing this organism. 



Zaufal (1888) 1568 " 9 contributed otitis media to the list of pri- 

 mary infections due to Fraenkel's diplococcus, and sharply differ- 

 entiated this coccus and the Friedlander bacillus, which was also 

 found to be responsible for a similar condition. Then Gamaleia, 498 

 harking back to the Pasteur organism, told of its constant pres- 

 ence in fibrinous pneumonia, and insisted that the Friedlander ba- 

 cillus was a saprophyte. 



In 1889, Foa and Bordoni-Uffreduzzi 461 introduced a confusing 

 note with the isolation of a monococcus from some mild cases of 

 fibrinous pneumonia. They suggested the possibility of there being 

 two types of organisms, but the descriptions are too incomplete to 

 warrant a decision. 



The names of Fraenkel and Weichselbaum had now become 

 practically hyphenated when applied to Pneumococcus. Arusta- 

 mow (1889) 24 found this organism in every one of fifty cases of 

 pneumonia, but failed in the examination of the saliva of fifteen 

 normal persons and the sputum from a like number of bronchitis 

 patients. Gabbi 497 isolated in pure culture the Virus pneumonico 

 (Microbio capsulato del Fraenkel) from a peritonsillar abscess 

 without pneumonia ; while Monti, 905 after finding Pneumococcus in 

 an arthritic joint of the hand, induced a localized infection experi- 

 mentally in a rabbit with the strain he isolated from the joint. 



