10 BIOLOGY OF PNEUMOCOCCUS 



up to alcohol, while the coccus retained the violet color. Then Em- 

 merich, 355 after hunting bacteria in air, water, dust, and dirt, re- 

 covered encapsulated diplococci from the filling between the floors 

 of a prison in Augsburg, notorious for over twenty-five years as a 

 breeding place of pneumonia. He cultivated the cocci on meat- 

 infusion peptone gelatin, separated them from accompanying bac- 

 teria, injected the purified culture into rabbits with indifferent suc- 

 cess, but obtained a higher fatality rate when he used mice. He 

 identified the coccus as that described by Friedlander, and gave 

 to the report the title, Die Auffindung von Pneumoniecoccen. . . . 

 Emmerich's discovery, confirmed several decades later by the work 

 of Stillman, 1326 furnished one of the first epidemiological clues to 

 the origin of some cases of pneumonia. 



Somewhat analogous to Emmerich's discovery of pneumococci in 

 the floor filth of a pneumonia-infected prison was the apparent 

 success of Pawlowsky (1885) 1072 in isolating, on solid media, Pneu- 

 mococcus-like organisms from the air of various rooms. Influenced 

 by the teaching of Friedlander, Pawlowsky, because his cocci were 

 slightly smaller (they were also associated with larger cocci) and 

 because they were pathogenic for rabbits, was not sure of his 

 ground. The infectiousness of these cocci for rabbits, guinea pigs, 

 and dogs indicates that among the bacteria described by Paw- 

 lowsky there were pneumococci. Cornil and Babes 278 added a note 

 to the effect that they had found lancet-shaped bacteria in the ton- 

 sils and from the endocardium of pneumonia patients, but they 

 made no cultures. 



Exudates from the pleura and pericardium of two pneumonia 

 patients yielded, in Salvioli's 1215 hands, encapsulated cocci which, 

 while fatally infective for guinea pigs, rabbits, and dogs, failed to 

 cause the typical lesions of pneumonia. Thinking that he had over- 

 whelmed the animals with the virulence of the fluids injected, he in- 

 troduced the infectious material intratracheally into four guinea 

 pigs, two of which died. Platonow, 1095 in a detailed and critical re- 

 view of the existing literature, concluded from the evidence and his 



