HISTORY OF PNEUMOCOCCUS: 1875-1890 5 



Vulpian, 1453 at the March (1881) meeting of the French Acad- 

 emy, said that he regretted that he had not been present at a for- 

 mer session when the letter from Pasteur to Parrot had been read, 

 because he also might have reported that he had caused the death 

 of a rabbit by the subcutaneous injection of normal saliva, while 

 the blood of that animal killed another rabbit within the space of 

 two days. The blood of the animals contained a number of "mi- 

 crobes," the majority having the same characteristics as those de- 

 scribed by Pasteur. Here was the link between the work of Pasteur 

 and that of Sternberg, but Vulpian, besides failing to appreciate 

 the connection, was tardy in his announcement. Claxton (1882), 237 

 too, found normal human saliva infectious for rabbits. Believing in 

 Pasteur's idea, he however confirmed Sternberg's results, with the 

 added observation that human saliva varied in its infecting power, 

 that of individuals from such tropical countries as Cuba and Bra- 

 zil being extremely virulent. 



In 1881, Osier 1039 spoke of finding "micrococcus balls" in four 

 cases of endocarditis complicating pneumonia. He was not willing 

 to assert they were the cause of the disease, but called attention to 

 the frequency with which this condition and meningitis accompany 

 pneumonia. Osier's comment recalls the earlier description by 

 Koester (1878) 736 of "bullet-like masses of micrococci" in embolic 

 endocarditis, which may or may not have been pneumococci. 



The year 1881 was an eventful one. If one examines the photo- 

 micrographs accompanying Robert Koch's 735 paper on pathogenic 

 organisms, there is little difficulty in identifying these lance-shaped 

 diplococci, but to Koch they were that and nothing more. Poin- 

 care 1102 was nearer the truth when he spoke of finding "prodigious 

 numbers of little spheres of double contour" in pneumonic lung tis- 

 sue, but he lacked the support of positive animal experiments to 

 justify a claim that these organisms were responsible for pneu- 

 monia. 



Shortly after the preliminary announcements of Pasteur and of 

 Sternberg, Friedlander ( 1882) 486 presented a communication which 

 takes high rank in the history of Pneumococcus. He reported that 



