SOFT SORE. 181 



the affection accordingly rests on the facts well established 

 that the organism is apparently always present in the 

 discharge from the sore, and in its tissues ; that it has been 

 observed hitherto in no other form of ulceration, and that 

 it is sharply marked off from saprophytic organisms by the 

 fact that it has not been obtained in cultures outside the 

 body. 



Regarding the presence of this organism in the buboes 

 associated with soft sore there is some uncertainty. A 

 considerable number of observers have failed to find it, 

 and have also failed to produce a characteristic soft sore 

 by inoculation with pus withdrawn from a bubo under 

 aseptic precautions. When a chancroid condition follows 

 in a bubo which has been opened, they accordingly con- 

 sider that it has been secondarily inoculated with the 

 bacillus. On the other hand one or two observers have 

 found the bacillus in unopened buboes. Audry, for 

 example, found it in a bubo before it had suppurated, 

 lying in little groups of two or three within leucocytes in the 

 lymph channels ; and in this case inoculation with the 

 material from the bubo produced the typical lesion. 

 Krefting also found it in buboes in some cases. It is 

 therefore possible that the buboes associated with soft sore 

 are caused by the same organisms, but that as suppuration 

 occurs they in great part die off. It seems certain at 

 least, from the results of various workers, that in many 

 cases the ordinary pyogenic organisms are not present in 

 the suppurating buboes. 



In connection with the two diseases, gonorrhoea and soft 

 sore, it is of special interest to note in the case of the 

 former how restricted are the conditions of growth outside 

 the body of the organism which produces the disease, and 

 that in the case of the latter, on the supposition that the 

 organism described above is the causal agent, attempts to 

 cultivate it outside the body have entirely failed. 



