Bacilli Resembling the Diphtheria Bacillus 429 



vents the reaction. Kolmer* has also made use of the Schick reac- 

 tion for the important purpose of determining how long the anti- 

 toxin serum injected into the patient remains and confers immunity. 

 When the reaction reappears, the immunity can be supposed to 

 have disappeared, and the patient again becomes susceptible to the 

 infection. 



A very interesting paper by Parkf shows the effect of the intro- 

 duction of antitoxin upon the death-rate from diphtheria and the 

 advantages of its employment. From it the following table is taken : 



"Combined statistics of deaths and death-rates from diphtheria and croup in 

 New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Berlin, Cologne, Bres- 

 lau, Dresden, Hamburg, Konigsberg, Munich, Vienna, London, Liverpool, 

 Glasgow, Paris, and Frankfort: 



Year Peculation Deaths from diph- Deaths per 



theria and croup 100,000 



1890 16,526,135 11,059 66.9 



1891 17,689,146 12,389 70.0 



1892 18,330,787 14,200 77 . 5 



1893 18,467,970 15,726 80.4 



1894 19,033,902 15,125 79.9 



1895! 19,143,188 10,657 55-6 



1896 19,489,682 9,651 49-5 



1897 19,800,629 8,942 45 . 2 



1898 20,037,918 7,170 35.7 



1899 20,358,837 7,256 35-6 



1900 20,764,614 6,791 32.7 



1901 20,874,572 6,104 29.2 



1902 21,552,398 5,630 26 . i 



1903 21,865,299 5,117 23.4 



1904 22,532,848 4,917 21.8 



1905 22,790,000 4,323 19 . o 



BACILLI RESEMBLING THE DIPHTHERIA BACILLUS 

 BACILLUS HOFMANNI 



The pseudo-diphtheria bacillus (bacillus of Hofmann-Wellenhof ) 

 Bacillus pseudo-diphthericus was first found by Lo frier || in diph- 

 theria pseudo-membranes and in the healthy mouth and pharynx. 

 Ohlmacher has found it with other bacteria in pneumonia; Babes, 

 in gangrene of the lung; and Ho ward,** in a case of ulcerative endo- 

 carditis not secondary to diphtheria. 



Parkff found that all bacilli with the typical morphology of the 

 diphtheria bacillus, found in the human throat, are virulent Klebs- 

 Loffler bacilli, while forms closely resembling them, but more 

 uniform in size and shape, shorter in length, and of more homo- 

 geneous . staining properties with Loffler's alkaline methylene- 

 blue solution, can with reasonable safety be regarded as pseudo- 

 diphtheria bacilli, especially if it be found that they produce an alka- 



*"Phila. Pathological Society," Feb. n, 1915. 



t "Journal of the Amer. Med. Assoc.," Feb. 17, 1912, LVIII, No. 7, p. 453. 



t Introduction of antitoxin treatment. 



"Wiener klin. Woch.," 1888, No. 3. 



"Centralbl. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenk.," n, 105. 



"Bull, of the Johns Hopkins Hospital," 1893, 30. 

 ft "Scientific Bulletin No. i," Health Department, city of New York, 1895. 



