42 ORIENTAL PLAGUE chap. 



race of B. pestis exhibited the characters of our second or rat type, 

 i.e. shorter rods than those of the human type, colonies more trans- 

 lucent in gelatine, and of less virulence than the first or human type. 

 It subsequently was elicited by Dr. Buchanan that this steamer 

 had arrived from Hamburg, where a number of rats had been found 

 on it, which rats had been diagnosed to have died of plague ; the 

 ship had been disinfected in Hamburg, and the seamen on leaving 

 Hamburg were all well. But soon after arrival the seaman was 

 taken ill and removed by the port medical officer to hospital as 

 " being clinically very suspicious." 



5. The notes of this case (5) are as follows : — " Purulent discharge 

 from a suppurating bubo, most other groups of glands are enlarged " 

 (May 28, 1904). "The patient is a sailor on a steamer just arrived 

 from Eosario. One of the crew died suddenly on the voyage." The 

 medical officer of health who forwarded the material added : "I 

 think it is syphilitic, but I am sending the discharge in case it might 

 by any chance happen to be plague." It has to be remembered that 

 Rosario is an infected place, and several instances of plague on ships 

 arriving from Rosario in English ports had been previously recorded. 



Film specimens showed amongst leucocytes and red blood discs 

 numerous cocci, as diplococci, in fours and in small and large masses ; 

 no bacilli. Agar surface plate was inoculated with the pus ; it showed, 

 after twenty-four hours, crowds of colonies of typical Staphylococcus 

 aureus in pure state. The guinea-pig that had been injected sub- 

 cutaneously with a fair amount of the purulent matter showed no 

 tumour twenty-four hours afterwards, nor later, and remained quite 

 well. The diagnosis was therefore negative qua plague. Patient 

 recovered. 



6. Case at Plymouth. 1 — Towards the end of February, Dr. Williams, 

 the medical officer of health, reported to the Local Government 

 Board a case as to which the medical attendant had been entertain- 

 ing suspicion that the illness might be plague. The patient, a 

 Jewish pawnbroker, became ill on February 16, with rigors, head- 

 ache, and fever, attended with prostration. Painful glandular swell- 

 ings developed in his armpit and groin. Material taken from this 

 patient was submitted to bacterioscopic examination. 



What had added to the suspicion of the medical attendant was 

 the fact that the pawnbroker had in the course of his business to 

 handle a considerable amount of clothing that had already been 



1 From Dr. R. Bruce Low's Report, p. 32. 



