424 PATHOGENIC MICROORGANISMS 



under anaerobic conditions, and found that minute forms developed, 

 small enough to be filtered, and they believed that it was these 

 anaerobic minute forms that represented the coccoid bodies of 

 Noguchi. It is very difficult to give any conclusive judgment on 

 this matter. Bull could not confirm Rosenow's work, and showed 

 that the organisms isolated by him were neither uniform in cultural 

 behavior, nor had they any specificity as regards the production 

 of lesions in animals. The weakest parts of Rosenow's work are 

 his animal experiments in which he produced lesions in guinea pigs, 

 dogs and monkeys with these cultures; none of these animals have 

 been found susceptible to poliomyelitis virus derived directly from 

 the filtered brain tissues of human cases. Mistakes are quite likely 

 to occur since cocci similar to the Rosenow types may be found 

 in a considerable number of rabbits, and even in monkeys dead of 

 a variety of conditions, unless cultures are taken before or very soon 

 after death. 



Personally we do not believe that Rosenow is right. 



The Question of Tissue Specificity of the Viridans. Rosenow, in 

 the course of the work cited above, isolated viridans streptococci 

 not only from poliomyelitis brains and rheumatic cases, but also 

 from gastric ulcers, and in the course of this work he developed 

 the theory that individual strains of these organisms may acquire 

 a specific affinity for particular tissues. His idea is that organisms 

 isolated from rheumatic lesions, gastric lesions, etc., will selectively 

 lodge in analogous tissues on animal injection or on gaining entrance 

 to another individual. Other observers have not been able to confirm 

 this claim, and, indeed, it is very unlikely that such a thing occurs. 

 At any rate, no definite proof has been brought, and the weight 

 of evidence is against his claim. It is an interesting thought, yet 

 a dangerous one to spread broadcast, since it has influenced clinical 

 thinking to an extent not warranted by experimental fact. In the 

 specific localization of organisms in the tissues, it seems to us much 

 more likely that tissue factors are paramount, such as perhaps 

 specific hypersusceptibility, or local reduction of resistance. Such 

 a thought is indicated by the work of Faber 72 who sensitized joints 

 with extracts of streptococci, subsequently producing lesions in these 

 joints by intravenous injection of the microorganisms themselves. 

 None of these ideas, however, have been proven, and the entire 

 question remains one of the difficult, unsettled problems. 



72 Faber, Jour. Exper. Med., 22, 1915, 615. 



