516 BIOLOGY OF PNEUMOCOCCUS 



EFFECT ON PNEUMOCOCCAL INFECTION 



More recent experience casts doubt on the effectiveness claimed 

 for optochin in combating pneumococcal infection. Reimann and 

 Moen, 1131 for example, employing the Goodner intradermal method 

 for infecting rabbits, after comparative trials with large doses of 

 quinine hydrochloride and ethylhydrocupreine in rabbits, con- 

 cluded that the feeble curative action of the drugs was in no way 

 comparable to the effect produced by specific immune serum. The 

 skepticism felt in Germany concerning the work of the American 

 authors led Gundel and Seitz 577 to investigate several hitherto un- 

 tried quinine derivatives. As a result of their experiments on mice, 

 the authors placed ethylapoquinine in the foremost rank. The com- 

 pound in high dilution killed pneumococci in fairly large numbers 

 both in vitro and in vivo, and in its action was to be preferred to 

 alpha and fofa-isoquinine and even to optochin. 



In contrast to the report of Gundel and Seitz was that of Kol- 

 mer and Rule 748 who, like Reimann and Moen, tested cinchona 

 preparations on rabbits suffering from "dermal pneumonia" fol- 

 lowing inoculation by the Goodner technique. Neither the optochin 

 base, ethylhydrocupreine hydrochloride, nor quinine and urea hy- 

 drochloride, given by stomach tube and by repeated intramuscular 

 injection, exhibited any beneficial effect on the local lesion, bac- 

 teriemia, or leucocyte count resulting from intradermal infection 

 with Type I pneumococci. In a more extended study comprising 

 tests on some thirty-five preparations of the quinine group, Mac- 

 lachlan, Permar, Johnston, and Kenney 846 found that only three 

 compounds of those tested possessed any conspicuous killing power 

 for pneumococci, and these substances were ethylapoquinine, hy- 

 droethylapoquinine, and hydroxyethylhydrocupreine. The authors' 

 preference was given to ethylapoquinine because it gave greater 

 protection to the mice treated than did optochin. The results were 

 not in agreement with those of Okomoto and Sogen, 1024 who found 

 that while apoquinine exhibited strong pneumococcidal action in 



