256 BACTERIA PATHOGENIC TO MAX 



the body is supposed to take place through the intestines, and this 

 gives rise to the intestinal lesions in animals injected intravenously or 

 intraperitoneally. The dysentery bacilli are not found in the blood 

 or organs of animals. 



Paradysentery Bacilli as Exciters of Dysentery. In 1900 Flexner and 

 Strong, when in the Philippine Islands, isolated bacilli from dysen- 

 teric stools which were identical with the Shiga cultures. At first all 

 the cultures were supposed to be of the Shiga type, but later among 

 those isolated bacilli were found, which differed from Shiga's in 

 many characteristics. In the same year Kruse, in Germany, obtained 

 from dysenteric cases in an asylum bacilli which appeared to him to 

 be culturally like those isolated by Shiga, but to differ in their agglu- 

 tinating characteristics. These, like those isolated by Flexner, were 

 later found to differ in many characteristics. In 1902 Duval and Bas- 

 sett, in Baltimore, thought they had found the Shiga bacilli in the stools 

 of a number of cases of summer diarrhoea. These later proved to be 

 identical with some of the bacilli isolated by Flexner in Manila. 

 During the same summer Park and Dunham isolated a bacillus from a 

 severe case of dysentery occurring during an epidemic at Seal Harbor, 

 Mt. Desert, Maine, which they showed to differ from the Shiga bacillus 

 in that it produced indol in peptone solution and differed in agglutin- 

 ating characteristics. 1 They at first considered it identical with the 

 Philippine culture given them by Flexner, but in January, 1903, it 

 was shown by Park to be a distinct variety, and later found by him 

 to be the exciting factor in a large number of cases. 



Martini and Lentz 2 published the results of their work in' Decem- 

 ber, 1902. They showed that the Shiga type of bacilli obtained from 

 several separate epidemics in Europe agreed with the original Shiga 

 culture in that it did not ferment mannite. The cultures of this 

 type agreed with each other in agglutinating characteristics. When 

 the bacilli from Flexner, Strong, Kruse, Park, Duval and others, 

 which differed from the Shiga culture in their agglutinins, were tested 

 they were all found to ferment mannite. Martini and Lentz considered 

 that the Shiga bacillus was the true dysentery type and that the man- 

 nite fermenting variety or varieties might be mere saprophytes, or 

 perhaps be a factor in the less characteristic cases. 



In January, 1903, Hiss 3 and Russell, independently of others, showed 

 that a bacillus isolated by them from a dysenteric stool differed from 

 Shiga's bacillus in the same characteristics as mentioned by Martini 

 and Lentz. 



At the beginning of the summer of 1903, therefore, it was established, 

 although not fully recognized, that there were in dysenteric stools at 

 least two distinct types of bacilli, the true Shiga type and the type fer- 

 menting mannite and producing indol. It had also been established 

 that the second type contained more than one variety. 



New York University Bulletin of the Medical Sciences, October, 1902, p. 187. 

 2 Zeitschrift f. Hygiene u. Infectioriskrank., 1902, xli., 540 and 559. 

 :) Medical News, 1903, Ixxxii., 289. 



