394 



PYOGENIC BACTERIA. 



Turro also claims to have produced specific urethritis in dogs by 

 inoculation with his cultures. Heiman (1895) as a result of an ex- 

 tended experimental research, arrives at the conclusion that "the 

 diplococcus described by Turro in connection with his acid media is 

 not the gonococcus." His inoculation experiments in dogs, made 

 with pure cultures of the gonococcus, gave an entirely negative result. 

 For the cultivation of the gonococcus, Heiman recommends a medium 

 made from "chest serum" obtained from a patient suffering with 

 hydrothorax or acute pleurisy. This was found to be superior to 

 placenta serum, sheep-blood serum, or peritoneum serum, because of 

 the great amount of serum albumin which it contains. Two per 

 cent of agar, one per cent of peptone, and one-half per cent of sodium 

 chloride were added to the chest serum, and the medium was sterilized 

 by "fractional sterilization." 



FIG. 87. Gonorrhoeal conjunctivitis, second day of sickness; section through the mucous mem- 

 brane of upper eyelid; invasion of the epithelial layer by gonococci. (Bumm.) 



Schrotter and Winkler (1890) report their success in cultivating 

 the gonococcus upon albumin from the egg of the pewit " Kibitz" 

 In the culture oven at 38 C. a thin, transparent, whitish layer was 

 already visible at the end of six hours and rapidly extended ; the 

 growth was less abundant at the end of three days, and had entirely 

 ceased by the fifth day. Attempts to cultivate the same microor- 

 ganism in albumin from hens' eggs gave a negative result. 



Aufuso (1891) has cultivated the gonococcus in fluid obtained 

 from the knee joint in a case of chronic synovitis, but failed to culti- 

 vate it in the fluid of ascites. A culture of the twelfth generation 

 made upon the culture medium mentioned, solidified by heat, was 

 introduced into the urethra of a healthy man and gave rise to a 

 characteristic attack of gonorrhoea. 



Development does not occur below 25 or above 38 C. The 

 writer has shown that a temperature of 60 C. maintained for ten 

 minutes destroys the infective virulence of gonorrhoeal pus. 



Pathogenesis. That the gonococcus is the cause of the specific 

 inflammation and purulent discharge characteristic of gonorrhoea is 

 now generally admitted upon the experimental evidence obtained by 



