SPTROCHETE OBERMEIERI 263 



hemorrhagise in cases of infectious jaundice or Weil's disease. 

 The disease is characterized by irregular fever, often severe jaun- 

 dice and hemorrhagic herpes. The organisms appear both in 

 the blood and the internal organs. Thus the disease seems to be 

 intermediate between the two classes of spirochetal infections. 

 The relation of rats to the spread of the disease has been estab- 

 lished in Japan and during the recent war in the trenches. It 

 has been found that the proportion of infected rats is sometimes 

 as high as 30 per cent; the spirochetes are passed in large num- 

 bers in the urine of infected animals, and in this way the soil and 

 various articles become contaminated. 



S. OBERMEIERI (S. RECURRENTIS) 



Obermeier discovered in 1873 an organism in the blood of 

 patients suffering from relapsing fever which is usually known 

 as Spirocheta obermeieri. He described its microscopical appear- 

 ance and he noted its presence in the blood during the time of 

 fever, its disappearance about the time of the crisis, and its reap- 

 pearance during relapses. 



Morphology and Staining. The organisms are seen as long, 

 delicate filaments from 16 to 40 /-t in length and about 0.5 /* in 

 width. The coils are somewhat wide and irregular. They possess 

 a single flagellum at one end and move in a partly undulating, 

 partly twisting fashion. They stain faintly with the anilin dyes 

 and much better with the Romanowsky stains. They are Gram 

 negative. 



Cultivation. All early attempts to cultivate the organisms 

 on artificial culture media were unsuccessful. One investigator 

 succeeded in keeping them alive for several generations by placing 

 them in celloidin capsules in the peritoneum of a rat. By Nogu- 

 chi's method, however, they can be readily cultivated. 



Pathogenesis. Rats, mice, and monkeys appear to be the 

 only animals susceptible to the disease. In man the symptoms 

 commence with severe frontal headache and a rapid rise of tem- 

 perature, which remains high for five to seven days and returns to 



