40 OEIENTAL PLAGUE chap. 



The subcultures obtained} from the primary agar cultures, i.e. 

 direct from the pus of the patient, as also those obtained from the 

 bubo fluid of the guinea-pig during life, and those of the spleen of 

 the animal after death, were, for some time afterwards, on several 

 occasions used for experimental purposes on guinea-pigs and rats and 

 found highly virulent. 



2. " The s.s. Friary, 1 from Alexandria, arrived at Hull on January 

 10th, 1901, having called at only one port on the return voyage, 

 namely, Algiers. The usual inquiries on arrival were made by the 

 Customs, who informed the port medical officer that on board there 

 was the body of a sailor who died on January 10th, about twelve 

 hours before the vessel reached Hull, from an illness then regarded 

 as 'influenza.' The corpse was removed to the mortuary and after- 

 wards buried. At the time of arrival no cases of sickness existed on 

 board, but on January 12th two sailors sickened. They were seen 

 by a private medical man as well as by Dr. Mason, the port medical 

 officer of health, who made a provisional diagnosis of ' influenza with 

 lung complications.' On January 15th two more members of the 

 crew sickened, and subsequently two others also were attacked. All 

 of these six cases proved fatal, and in all the diagnosis of plague was 

 confirmed by bacterioscopic investigation." 



The materials submitted to me for bacterioscopic analysis were 

 pieces of lung and spleen of two of the dead sailors. 



In both cases the lung pieces were deep purple red, solid, and 

 sank in water. A film specimen (impression of a cut surface) made 

 of the lung showed, besides a few leucocytes and red blood corpuscles, 

 an almost continuous layer of oval bacilli with marked bipolar stain- 

 ing in pure culture (Fig. 2) ; these bacilli were Gram-negative ; 

 film specimens of the spleen likewise exhibited abundance of the 

 same oval bipolar bacilli. Since these appearances of the lung juice 

 do not occur in any other acute disease than pneumonic plague, the 

 diagnosis of "plague" could be at once made. Cultures in agar 

 plates and agar tubes, injection of guinea-pigs with lung juice and 

 spleen juice of both cases, fully confirmed the diagnosis. 



3. Manchester Case. — The second cook of a steamer which arrived 

 at Middlesbrough had with other seamen been passed by the port 

 sanitary authorities. He travelled to Manchester, where soon after 

 arrival he was taken ill with fever and inguinal bubo, and admitted 

 (June 10, 1905) to hospital. His illness was diagnosed as (?) pestis 



1 Dr. R. Bruce Low's Report, p. 14. 





