PNEUMONIA. 287 



The pneuinococcus causes other lesions than croupous 

 pneumonia; thus, Foa, Bordoni-Uffreduzzi, and others 

 have found it in cerebrospinal meningitis; Frankel, in 

 pleuritis; Weichselbaum, in peritonitis; Banti, in peri- 

 carditis; numerous observers have found it in acute ab- 

 scesses; Gabbi has isolated it from a case of suppurative 

 tonsillitis; Axenfeld has observed an epidemic of con- 

 junctivitis caused by it; and Zaufal, Levy, and Schrader 

 and Netter have been able to demonstrate its presence in 

 the pus of otitis media. It has also been reported as oc- 

 curring in the joints in arthritis following pneumonia. 



The pneuinococcus is often present in the mouths of 

 healthy persons. The conditions under which it enters 

 the lung to produce pneumonia are not known. 



In the opinion of most authorities, something more 

 than the simple entrance of the bacterium into the lung 

 is required for the production of the disease, but what 

 that something is, is still a matter of doubt. It would 

 seem to be some systemic depravity, and in support of this 

 view we may point out that pneumonia is very frequent, 

 and almost universally fatal, among drunkards. Whether, 

 however, any vital depression or systemic depravity will 

 predispose to the disease, or whether it depends for its 

 origin upon the presence of a certain leucomai'ne, time 

 and further study will be required to tell. 



Bacillus Pneumonia of Friedlander — Bacillus Capsu- 

 latus Mucosus (Fig. 63). — An unfortunate accident has ap- 

 plied the name "pneuinococcus" to an organism very dif- 

 ferent from the one just described. It was discovered by 

 Friedlander ' in 1883 in the exudate from the lung in 

 croupous pneumonia, and, being thought by its discov- 

 erer to be the cause of the disease, very naturally was 

 called the pneuinococcus, or, more correctly, the pncu- 

 mobacillus. The grounds upon which the pathogeny of 

 the organism was supposed to depend were very insuffi- 

 cient, and the bacillus of Friedlander — or, as Fliigge 

 prefers to call it, the Bacillus pneumoniae — has ceased to 



1 Fortschritte der Medizitt, 1883, 22. 



