440 -B4 CTERIOL OGY. 



exist in only the most minute numbers. The Eisner 

 method has the objection that it is very difficult to work 

 with in hot weather. The Hiss plate medium has the 

 objection that it is a difficult medium to prepare. If 

 the acidity is not just right the thread outgrowths do 

 not appear. Indeed, the only sure way is to test a new 

 batch of medium with a pure culture and alter the 

 reaction until the culture grows correctly. A very few 

 varieties of the typhoid bacillus do not produce typical 

 thread outgrowths from the colonies. 



The Capaldi medium has the objection that some of 

 the typhoid and some of the colon colonies frequently 

 look much alike. If one, however, will always pick 

 out the colonies which look most like the typhoid, it 

 will usually turn out that typhoid bacilli have been 

 obtained if any were present. Personally, for general 

 use I prefer the Capaldi medium for the plate cultures 

 and the Hiss tube medium for identifying the bacilli 

 obtained. Through these media we are now in a posi- 

 tion to obtain and identify typhoid bacilli from feces, 

 urine, etc., within forty-eight hours. 



Recently numerous investigations have been carried 

 out to discover how frequently and at what period in 

 typhoid fever cases bacilli were present in the feces 

 and urine. In the laboratory Hiss has recently exam- 

 ined the feces in forty- three consecutive cases, thirty- 

 seven of which were in the febrile stage and six con- 

 valescent. In a number of instances only one stool was 

 examined, but even under these adverse conditions the 

 average of positive results in the febrile stage was 66.6 

 per cent. 



Out of 26 cases of typhoid fever in hospitals exam- 

 ined ; 21 were in the febrile stage and 5 convalescent. 



