114 CULTIVATION EXPERIMENTS 



The cultures were made from fourteen cases as follows: 



Case 130 5th day of typhus Case 162 7th day of typhus 



135 7th a 163 7th 



138 llth * " " 165 9th 



142 8th " " 171 9th " 



144 8th " " 182 llth 



149 8th " " 180 day of disease un- 



152...'... 8th known, second week? 



158 6th 



The Plotz cultures were examined daily by transmitted 

 light, and each tube before being discarded was broken and 

 searched for colonies by sectioning the medium. 



3. RESULTS OF THE ANAEROBIC CULTURES 



Five cases only showed no growth. The shortest time of 

 observation was nine days, the longest thirty days. No 

 growth occurred in control tubes made coincidentally with 

 these five cultures. 



Six culture tubes from six cases yielded growth of bacteria; 

 from three cases a large gram-positive bacillus; from one case 

 a gram-positive diplococcus; from one case a large gram- 

 negative bacillus; and, in one case, a single colony which oc- 

 cuired in one tube was not examined. 



The control cultures of ascitic fluid in six instances yielded 

 growth. In four, a large gram-positive bacillus, presumably 

 the same as that in the blood cultures, in one instance a gram- 

 positive micrococcus and in one case a gram-negative bacillus. 



The large gram-positive bacillus in all of the blood cultures 

 and control tubes developed late in the media. 1 



4. CONTROL AEROBIC CULTURES 



Cultures from Cases 138 and 165 were positive. From Case 

 138 a gram-positive diplococcus developed in plates and was 

 apparently the same organism that developed in the anaerobic 



1 Kuczynski, in July, 1920, published an account of the cultivation of Rickettsia 

 prowazeki from the brains of typhus infected guinea-pigs. He employed a medium of 

 citrated blood plasma to which was added blood treated with dilute sulphuric acid and 

 neutralized in order to supply the products of protein decomposition. The cultures were 

 grown in collodian sacs in the peritoneal cavities of guinea-pigs. We have not yet at- 

 tempted to repeat his procedures. 



