246 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Aug 



to one to a thousand. The serum of non-leprous patients 

 does not act in this dilution. This method will, if its re- 

 liability be confirmed, be of great diagnostic value in the 

 early stages of leprosy. 



The agglutinative serum reaction applied to the bac- 

 terium of Malta fever — Micrococcus miletensis — recently 

 materially aided Musser and Sailer, of Philadelphia, in 

 diagnosing the first case of this disorder so far reported 

 in the United States. The disease occurred in an army 

 officer who had returned from Porto Rico with symptoms 

 slightly resembling typhoid and Musser and Sailer right- 

 ly suggest that many cases from Porto Rico and Cuba, re- 

 ported as typhoid fever without the Widal reaction, or 

 malaria without the plasmodium, may be really cases of 

 this infection, and they suggest that all cases of "contin- 

 ued undulant fever" be tested for this special form of 

 serum reaction. 



Pappenheim and Fraenkel have found in cases of pul- 

 monary gangrene large numbers of smegma bacilli, which 

 in one case led to the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculo- 

 sis, whereas, at the autopsy, no tuberculous lesions were 

 found. In Pappenheim's opinion, if the smears be decol- 

 orized with a solution containing absolute alcohol, one 

 hundred parts, rosolic acid, one part, and methylene blue 

 to saturation, no danger of error will be present. Fraenkel 

 claims that it is only necessary to take special precau- 

 tions in cases of putrid sputa, rich in fats and myelin. 

 Sudan III, as will be mentioned further on, has also been 

 used as a differential stain. 



Carl Sternberg has cultivated the Boas-oppler bacillus, 

 and finds that it grows in short forms on glucose agar, 

 but becomes long and slender on maltose bouillon, and he 

 advances the interesting theory that the short forms are 

 often present in the gastric contents, and escape notice, 

 but when certain chemical changes occur, through cancer 

 or otherwise, the long, characteristic forms appear. 



