SUPPURA TION. 2 7 1 



Netter, Laveran, 1 Catrin, Mecray, and Walsh 2 have all 

 studied cases and isolated a diplococcus thought to be 

 specific. The organism is described as occurring in pairs 

 and in fours, sometimes in zooglea. It grows slowly in the 

 ordinary media, clouding bouillin in twenty-four hours, 

 and appearing on gelatin after forty-eight hours as small 

 white punctiform colonies which develop very slowly 

 and liquefy some considerable time after coalescence. 

 It grows on potato, and has a whitish appearance not 

 easy to detect. Laveran and Catrin found the organism 

 in 67 out of 72 cases examined. In their method a 

 few drops of exudate are withdrawn from the inflamed 

 gland with a hypodermic needle, some of the negative 

 results being due to the fact that the needle withdrew no 

 exudate. The blood gave pure cultures in 10 out of 15 

 trials. 



Mecray and Walsh report that by disinfecting the 

 mouths of patients, suffering from mumps, with a satu- 

 rated boric acid solution, and cleansing Stensen's duct, 

 by careful massage expressing its secretion, and then 

 allowing a piece of cotton saturated with a boric acid 

 solution to remain for five minutes between the orifice of 

 the duct and the jaw, they were able to secure from the 

 interior of the duct upon a bougie of sterile catgut a 

 micrococcus identical with that Laveran had found. Of 

 tubes inoculated with the contents of Stensen's duct 6 

 gave a mixed growth. All, however, showed the diplo- 

 coccus. Out of 8 carefully made blood examinations, 3 

 gave pure cultures of the coccus and 3 mixed cultures; 2 

 were negative. 



From Stensen's duct in healthy children they obtained 

 the various oral bacteria, but not the diplococcus found 

 in the cases of mumps. The experimenters do not think 

 it possible that this diplococcus is the Staphylococcus 

 epidermidis albus, as its growth is slower and the lique- 

 faction of gelatin is accomplished only after a longer 



1 La Semaine Medicale, 1894 or I £95, No. 7. 



2 Medical Record, Sept. 25, 1896. 



