460 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



theria bacillus has not received very much attention, al- 

 though d'Herrelle found in the manure of diphtheria 

 antitoxin horses a substance which would dissolve the 

 diphtheria bacillus. Among the lower animals, for the 

 organisms of fowl typhoid, hemorrhagic septicemia and 

 plague of the rat, a lytic substance was present in the in- 

 testines. As d'Herrelle says, probably the parasite is 

 the same for all organisms, but becomes adapted to spe- 

 cific organisms according to the conditions. 



The most interesting results obtained with bacterioph- 

 age from a public health standpoint are the inoculation 

 experiments of d'Herrelle. In an epidemic of avian 

 typhoid which was scattered over 25 poultry farms, from 

 20 to 50 percent of the fowls had died from the disease. 

 He gave to' 600 of the fowls by ingestion 1 cc. of the bac- 

 teriophage culture activated against B. gallinarium, and 

 to 1500 more 0.5 cc. of the same culture subcutaneously. 

 Not one of the fowls on the 25 farms which had received 

 the bacteriophage died, although the epidemic continued 

 to rage on other poultry farms in the vicinity. In Indo- 

 China hemorrhagic septicema among the buffaloes is an 

 exceedingly fatal disease. By injecting into 100 buf- 

 faloes 0.25 cc. of bacteriophage principle, d'Herrelle im- 

 munized the animals to such an extent that they received 

 without harm 1000 fatal doses of the pathogenic bacteria 

 necessary to kill butfaloes under ordinary conditions. 

 The blood of these immunized animals conferred immun- 

 ity upon other animals when infected. Rabbits, which 

 are very susceptible to the toxin of bacilliary dysentery, 

 were rendered immune by the subcutaneous injection of 

 a small amount of bacteriophage. In seven cases of 

 dysentery in man, the injection of 1 cc. of bacteriophage 

 was followed in from 24 to 36 hours by the disappearance 

 of blood and bacillus from the stools. 



From these results it would seem that it would be a 

 simple matter to immunize our population against all in- 

 testinal diseases, by simply injecting a small amount of 

 bacteriophage. In case a person, contracted a disease, 

 he could be cured by injection of bacteriophage. Prob- 

 ably the problem will not be solved so easily. d'Herrelle 



