492 PROTOZOA 



Metchnikoff showed that during the intermissions when the spirilla 

 disappeared from the circulating blood they accumulated in the spleen 

 and were ingested in large numbers by certain phagocytes and finally 

 were destroyed. 



According to Lamb a certain amount of immunity is conferred upon 

 monkeys (Macacus radiatus) soon after an attack, but it disappears 

 quickly. If the serum is removed during this time it is found to have 

 some protective action when mixed with the blood containing spirillse, 

 and also to cause agglutination of the organisms. 



Infection probably occurs through the bite of blood-sucking insects. 



Button showed (1905) that tick fever of the Congo, which is caused 

 by an organism similar to that causing relapsing fever elsewhere, can 

 be transferred to monkeys by the bites of young ticks at their first feed 

 after hatching from infected parents. He accidentally demonstrated 

 the fact that the disease can be inoculated into human beings through 

 a cut surface, for after a wound received at autopsy he developed the 

 disease which eventually caused his death. 



Spirilla similar to the spirochsete Obermeieri have been found in 

 birds. 



Spirochaete Pallida Schaudinn in Syphilis. 



The first two papers by Schaudinn and Hoffmann 1 appeared almost 

 simultaneously. The paper in the former publication was illustrated 

 with two photomicrographs, showing the form of the organism. These 

 papers were quickly followed by two communications from Metchni- 

 koff's 2 laboratory in the Pasteur Institute, confirming and accepting 

 the discovery, and drawing attention to the interesting fact that Bordet 

 and Gengou had observed the same micro-organism in a syphilitic 

 chancre some three years before. However, as they failed to discover 

 it in some syphilitic lesions which they subsequently studied they 

 abandoned any future search for it. In this country the results of the 

 above investigators have been corroborated by Flexner and Ewing. 



The first publication of Hoffmann and Schaudinn dealt with a study 

 of primary chancres, the enlarged glands of the groin attending these 

 lesions, and flat condylomata in syphilitic patients. The study con- 

 sisted in the examination of fresh specimens obtained from the surface 

 and interior of the primary lesions and the interior of lymph glands 

 and condylomata, and stained specimens from the same sources. Certain 

 control examinations were also made of non-syphilitic lesions of the 

 genitals and of mixed lesions of these parts. The results were quite 

 uniform and suggestive. From the cases of simple syphilitic infection 

 the lymph glands, condylomata, and interior of chancres showed a 

 variable number of spiral micro-organisms of great tenuity, for which 

 they propose tentatively the name spirochrete pallida, while the non- 



1 Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte, Berlin, April 10, 1905, xxii.; Zweite's Heft, 527 ; 

 Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, May 4, 1905, xxxi. p. 711. 



2 Metchnikoff and Roux, Recherches microbiologiques sur sa syphilis, Bulletin de 1' Academic de 

 medecine, Paris, May 16, 1905. 



