128 BACTERIOLOGY. 



ACUTE ANTERIOR POLIOMYELITIS. 



This is an acute infectious disease affecting the 

 gray matter of the spinal cord, causing paralysis of 

 groups of muscles. It occurs in sporadic and epidemic 

 form. It affects children particularly, and while the 

 mortality rate is low the deformities resulting from 

 the paralysis are very disfiguring. 



During the past year Drs. Flexner and Noguchi, 

 at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, have been 

 successful in cultivating an organism from the spinal 

 cords of fatal cases of this disease. By inoculating 

 monkeys with the cultures they have reproduced the 

 disease and, after the death of the animals, have re- 

 covered the organism again from, the spinal cord. 



How the infection is spread is not known. It is 

 assumed that the discharges from the nose and throat 

 are infectious; so they should be collected and de- 

 stroyed. As an added precaution, the patient should 

 be isolated. No method of immunization is known. 



ACUTE RHEUMATIC FEVER. 



This disease is generally conceded to be infectious, 

 but the cause is as yet unknown. Several kinds of 

 bacteria, among them the streptococci and staphylo- 

 cocci, have been described as its cause. They have 

 been cultivated from the joints, blood, tonsils, and 

 heart-valves of rheumatic-fever patients. An infec- 

 tion very much like rheumatic fever has been produced 

 by inoculating animals with the cultures. It is not cer- 



