CHAPTER IV. 

 YELLOW FEVER. 



Bacillus Icteroides (Sanarelli 1 ). 



The bacteriology of yellow fever has been studied by 

 Domingos Freire, Carmona y Valle, Sternberg, Havel- 

 burg, and most recently by Sanarelli. 



Sternberg, at the Tenth International Medical Con- 

 gress (Berlin, 1890), reported the study of 42 yellow fever 

 autopsies in which aerobic and anaerobic cultures were 

 made from the blood, liver, kidney, urine, stomach, and 

 intestines, but the specific infectious agent was not found, 

 and the most approved bacteriological methods failed to 

 demonstrate the constant presence of any particular 

 micro-organism in the blood and tissues of yellow fever 

 cadavers. The micro-organism most frequently encoun- 

 tered was the Bacillus coli communis. 



The most important micro-organism met with was 

 Bacillus x (Sternberg), which was isolated by the culture- 

 method from a considerable number of cases, and may 

 have been present in all. It was not present in any of 

 the control-experiments. It was very pathogenic for rab- 

 bits when injected into the abdominal cavity. Sternberg 

 says: " It is possible that this bacillus is concerned in the 

 etiology of yellow fever, but no satisfactory evidence that 

 this is the case has been obtained by experiments upon 

 the lower animals, and it has not been found in such 

 numbers as to warrant the inference that it is the veri- 

 table infectious agent." 



The latest important researches upon yellow fever are 

 those of Sanarelli and his followers. 2 In studying the 



1 Ann. de F Inst. Pasteur, June, 1897. 



2 Brit. Med. Jour., July 3, 1897, and Ann. de I Inst. Pasteur, June, Sept., 

 and Oct., 1897. 



518 



