CHAPTER XIV. 



WHOOPING-COUGH. 



THE; BORDET-GENGOU BACILLUS. 



THE subacute, contagious, undoubtedly infectious disease 

 of childhood, characterized by periodic attacks of spasmodic 

 cough and laryngeal spasm, terminating in a prolonged 

 crowing inspiration and frequently followed by vomiting 

 and prostration, known as pertussis, or whooping-cough, has 

 long been subject to bacteriologic investigation. Deichler, 

 Kurloff, Szemetzchenko, Cohn, Neumann, Ritter, and 

 Afanassiew have all written upon bacteria which they sup- 

 posed to be the causal factors of the disease, but which time 

 has consigned to oblivion. Koplik* and Czaplewski and 

 Henself described micro-organisms that for some years at- 

 tracted attention and caused more or less discussion as to 

 which might be the real excitant of the disease or whether 

 they were identical organisms. As time passed, both obser- 

 vations lacked sufficient confirmation to carry conviction 

 of their importance, and they, too, fell into oblivion. A still 

 different organism was described by VincenziJ, but also 

 failed to meet sufficient confirmatory evidence to prevent 

 it from meeting the fate of its predecessors. 



Spengler, Kraus and Jochmann,|| and Davis** showed the 

 frequent presence of minute bacilli in the sputum and also in 

 the lesions of the disease. They were, almost beyond doubt, 

 influenza bacilli. 



In 1906 Bordet and Gengouft described a new organism 

 whose importance was supported by such weighty evidence 



* "Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., Sept. 15, 1897, xxn, 8 and 9, p. 222. 

 t "Deutsch. med. Wochenschrift," 1897, No. 57, p. 586; " Centralbl. 

 f. Bakt.," etc., Dec. 22, 1897, xxn, Nos. 22 and 23, p. 641. 



t"Alti della Accademia di Medicina in Torino," LXI, 5-7; "Cen- 

 tralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., Jan. 19, 1898, xxm, p. 273. 

 "Deutsch. med. Wochenschrift," 1897, 830. 

 || "Zeitschrift fur Hygiene," etc., 1901, xxxvi, 193. 

 ** "Jour. Infectious Diseases," 1906, in, i. 

 ft "Ann. de 1'Inst. Pasteur," 1906, xx, 731. 



488 



