61(5 PATHOGENIC MICROORGANISMS 



be successfully used in actively immunizing human beings. In 1903 

 Friedmann 86 described two cases of spontaneous infection of a salt-water 

 turtle (Chelone corticata) with acid-fast bacilli, presenting lesions in 

 the lungs which simulated pulmonary tuberculosis in the human being 

 (cavity formation and miliary nodules) . The organisms cultivated from 

 these lesions presented much similarity to those of the human type and, 

 according to Friedmann, 87 unlike other acid-fast bacilli of cold-blooded 

 animals, could be grown at 37.5 C. As a possible human origin for the 

 turtle infections Friedmann mentions that the attendant who fed these 

 turtles suffered from a double pulmonary tuberculosis. 



Upon inoculation into guinea-pigs localized lesions only were pro- 

 duced, and dogs, rats, and birds were immune. The implication of 

 Friedmann's work is that his culture represented a human strain attenu- 

 ated for man by passage through the turtle, although, as far as we are 

 aware, no definite statement as to this was made. 



Summarizing the work of many investigators (Weber, Taute, 

 Kiister, Allegri, Bertarelli, and others) Kiister 88 makes a statement 

 which is, in essence, as follows: In the carp, in snakes, turtles, and frogs 

 spontaneous " tuberculosis " may occur. The organisms which cause 

 these diseases are specific for cold-blooded animals, similar in many re- 

 spects to the tubercle bacillus of warm-blooded animals, but in the latter 

 do not produce progressive disease. Human, bovine, and avian tubercle 

 bacilli inoculated into cold-blooded animals can produce lesions which 

 histologically simulate tuberculosis. These microorganisms can remain 

 a year in cold-blooded animals without losing their pathogenicity for 

 guinea-pigs. Mutation of the tubercle bacillus of warm-blooded animals 

 into cold-blooded ones has not been proven. 



P'or these reasons it is quite impossible to exclude, in the apparently 

 positive work of Friedmann and others, the isolation of a true " cold- 

 blooded" type organism, rather than a mutation form originally of 

 the warm-blooded type. What Friedmann's present claims in this 

 respect are for his culture has not been stated as far as we know. The 

 possibility of a positive immunizing value of organisms isolated from 

 cold-blooded animals in human beings, though remote, is not out of 

 question. The problem is so serious and important, and the experience 



** Friedmann, D. Metl. Woch., No. 2, Jan., 1903, 25. 



^Friedmann. D. Med. Woch., No. 26, 464, 1903, and Centralbl. f. Bakt., I, 

 xxxiv, 1903, also Zeitschr. f. Tuberkulose, iv, Heft 5, 1903. 

 **Kolle und Wassermann's Handbuch, 2d edition, v, 767. 



