Cultivation 793 



greatly modified our ideas of the tertiary stage, for the 

 demonstration of the organisms in its lesions shows them to 

 be undoubtedly contagious. The greatest number of the 

 organisms are found in the tissues especially the liver of 

 still-born infants with congenital syphilis. 



Cultivation. The cultivation of the treponema was first 

 attempted by Levaditi and Mclntosh,* who, deriving the 

 organism from an experimental primary lesion in a monkey 

 (Macacus rhesus), carried it through several generations 

 in collodion sacs inclosed in the peritoneal cavity of other 

 monkeys (Macacus cynomolgus) and in the peritoneal 

 cavity of rabbits. They were unable, however, to secure 

 the treponema in pure culture, having it continually mixed 

 with other organisms from the primary lesion. In the 

 mixture, however, they were able to cultivate it for genera- 

 tions and study its morphology and behavior. During 

 cultivation its virulence was lost. 



Schereschewsky f endeavored to cultivate the treponema 

 by placing a fragment of human tissue containing it deep 

 down into a high layer of gelatinized horse -serum. The 

 treponema grew together with the contaminating organism, 

 and no pure culture was secured. Muhlens J and Hoffmann, 

 using the same method, succeeded in securing pure cultures 

 of the treponema, but found them avirulent. 



Noguchi,|| taking advantage of the observations of Bruck- 

 ner and Galasesco ** and Sowade, ft that an enormous multi- 

 plication of treponema occurred when material containing it 

 was inoculated into the rabbit's testis, performed a lengthy 

 series of cultivation experiments with the enriched material 

 thus obtained. The only suitable culture-medium in these 

 earlier experiments proved to be a " serum water," composed 

 of i part of the serum of the sheep, horse, or rabbit and 3 parts 

 of distilled water; 16 c.c. of this mixture was placed in test- 

 tubes 20 cm. long and 1.5 cm. in diameter and sterilized for 

 fifteen minutes at 100 C. each day for three days. 



To each of a series of such tubes a carefully removed frag- 



* "Ann. de 1'Inst. Pasteur," 1907, p. 784. 



t" Deutsche med. Wochenschrift," 1909, xxxv, 835, 1260, 1652. 



t Ibid., 1909, xxxv, 1261. 



"Zeitschrift fur Hygiene und Infektionsk.," 1911, LXVIII, 27. 



|| "Journal of Experimental Medicine," 1911, xiv, 99. 

 ** "Compt.-rendu de la Soc. de Biol. de Paris," 1910, LXVIII, 648. 

 ft "Deutsche med. Wochenschrift," 1911, xxxvii, 682. 



