Staphylococcus Pyogenes Aureus et Albus 305 



kept for three days at 37C. Staphylococci are capable of producing 

 fatty acids from sugars, hence acidity develops in media containing 

 lactose, maltose, mannite and glycerin. The acids most commonly 

 produced are acetic, valerianic, butyric and propionic. 



Toxic Products. Leber seems to have first conceived of suppura- 

 tion as a toxic process depending upon the soluble products of 

 parasitic fungi, and in 1888, through the action of alcohol upon 

 Staphylococci, prepared an acicular crystalline body soluble in 

 alcohol and ether, but slightly soluble in water, to which he gave 

 the name phlogosin. 



Mannatti found that pus has substantially the same toxic prop- 

 erties as sterilized cultures of the Staphylococcus; that repeated in- 

 jections of sterilized pus induce chronic intoxication and marasmus; 

 that injection of sterilized pus under the skin causes a grave form of 

 poisoning; and that the symptoms and pathologic lesions caused by 

 these injections correspond with those observed in men suffering 

 from chronic suppuration. 



Van de Velde* found that the Staphylococcus has some metabolic 

 products destructive to the leukocytes, which he has called leuko- 

 cidin. This poison causes the cells to cease ameboid movement, 

 become spheric, and gradually to lose their granules, until they finally 

 appear like empty sacs containing shadow nuclei, which eventually 

 disappear. The leukolysis occurs in about two minutes. These 

 observations have been abundantly confirmed. Kraussf first ob- 

 served that certain products of the Staphylococcus were hemolytic 

 and destroyed red blood-corpuscles. This hemolysin has been 

 carefully studied by Neisser and Wechsberg,J by whom it was 

 called staphylolysin. 



Durme found staphylolysin produced most abundantly by 

 virulent Staphylococci. 



Ribbert|| found that both sterilized and unsterilized cultures when 

 intravenously injected into animals produced definite changes in 

 the heart, kidneys, lungs, spleen, and bone-marrow, and attributed 

 the action to the toxin. 



Morse** found that the toxic products of Staphylococcus aureus 

 were capable of occasioning interstitial nephritis. 



The Staphylococci form very little extracellular toxin, as filtered 

 cultures provoke little local or general reaction in animals, even 

 when the Staphylococcus is highly virulent. 



To secure the endo-toxin, masses of culture, prepared as described 

 in the section upon "Bacterio- vaccines," are ground in a mortar, or 



* 'La Cellule," 1896, xi, p. 349. 



; Wiener, klin. Wochenschrift," 1900. 



: Zeitschrift fur Hygiene/' 1911, xxxvi, p. 330. 



Hyg. Rundschau," 1903, Heft 2, p. 66. 



: Die pathologische Anatomic und die Heilung der durch den Staphylococcus 

 pyogenes aureus hervorgerufenen Erkrankungeri." 



** "Journal of Experimental Medicine," 1896, vol. i, p. 613. 



