676 PATHOGENIC MICROORGANISMS 



experimentally converted into typhoid carriers. Bully 102 tried this 

 treatment upon human carriers, giving 0.5 c.c. of chloroform in capsules 

 four times a day for twenty days, without any results. Neosalvarsan 

 has been tried without effect. The only encouraging reports we can 

 find in an extensive review of the literature to date are the recent ones of 

 Kalberlah 103 who administered tincture of iodine together with animal 

 charcoal, and those of Geronne 104 who similarly combined charcoal 

 with thymol. None of these methods have, however, been sufficiently 

 confirmed to encourage great hope. 



THE TYPHOID BACILLUS IN TRANSIT FROM SOURCE TO VICTIM. 

 The typhoid bacillus which reaches the outer world in the feces and 

 urine of carriers and cases is fortunately not a very resistant organism. 

 It requires moisture and a favorable temperature approaching 37.5 C. 

 for multiplication, and suitable nutritive material. These conditions 

 being unfavorable, it is -subjected to a rapid diminution in concentration 

 by dilution, and dies out with relative speed. In sewage and feces, 

 moreover, it is subject to rapid destruction in the competition with the 

 more hardy plebeians with which it comes in contact. In feces the 

 organisms will live for very variable periods according to temperature 

 and conditions governing decomposition. They may be destroyed 

 within a day or two, and in cesspools, etc., where they are immediately 

 mixed with large numbers of decomposing feces, they live for probably 

 not longer than a few days under any conditions. If feces are frozen, 

 that is, deposited in the open in the winter, the organisms may live 

 throughout the winter and enter water sheds, etc., with the thaw. In 

 water, as a rule, they do not live more than a few days or perhaps a 

 week, and according to Rosenau they live longer in clean than in con- 

 taminated water. In sewage their life is short. Freezing does not kill 

 them. According to the investigations of Gartner 105 the typhoid 

 bacilli could be found in the flowing water of the Paris water supply 

 after a day and one-half. In all statements of this kind it must be 

 remembered by the sanitarian that no absolute rules can be set up, 

 since we know that the inability of all microorganisms like the typhoid 

 bacillus depend very delicately upon temperature, nutrition, the presence 

 of other bacteria, moisture, heat, light reaction, etc. We have ourselves 

 seen typhoid bacilli alive and viable after many years of sealing in agar 

 cultures preserved in the dark and in a cool place, and, while in nature 



102 Bully, Zeit. f. Hyg., 61, 1911, 29. 

 ^Kalberlah, Med. Klinik., 1915. 



104 Geronne, Berl. klin. Woch., 1915. 



105 Gartner, Klin. Jahrb., 9, 1902. 



