148 RELATIONSHIPS OF THE COCCACE^E 



(Baginsky, 1896; Baginsky and Sommerfeld, 1900; Bag- 

 insky, 1902; Sommerfeld, 1903) and their followers 

 believed that scarlet fever was caused by a specific strep- 

 tococcus; and their attempts to treat this disease by 

 anti-streptococcic serum attracted wide attention. Moser 



(1902) and Moser and v. Pirquet (1902), by injecting 

 horses with streptococci isolated from cases of scarlet 

 fever, were able to prepare immune sera which showed a 

 certain group agglutination with streptococci from similar 

 sources, and which when administered to human beings 

 appeared to exert a favorable effect upon the course of the 

 disease. Other observers were less successful. Neufeld 



(1903) concluded that rabbits immunized against one 

 streptococcus would exhibit an equal immunity and equal 

 agglutinative power against other streptococci from various 

 sources. Organisms from scarlet fever showed no 

 characteristic relations. Weaver (1904) also found no 

 constant group serum reactions, which would separate the 

 streptococci of scarlatina from those of other pathological 

 conditions. 



The isolation of streptococci from rheumatic lesions 

 was reported by various observers prior to 190x5; and 

 in that year a number of English investigators became 

 convinced that an organism of this group bore a definite 

 causative relation to the disease. Poynton and Paine 

 (1900) described a streptococcus which they had isolated 

 from eight successive cases, apparently a small Gram- 

 negative form of Str. pyogenes. This organism was 



