702 PATHOGiEilC MICROORGANISMS 



and even in Piorkowski's urine gelatin, resembled that of Bacillus 

 typhosus. According to Kruse, this organism was absolutely without 

 motility. 



In 1901 Kruse 5 contributed a second paper. In this, besides con- 

 firming his previous observations, he described another class of organ- 

 ism coming from cases which he designated as "pseudo-dysentery of 

 insane asylums." In the case of one patient, and at two autopsies, he 

 isolated organisms which he could not distinguish, morphologically or 

 culturally, from the true dysentery bacillus, but which showed differ- 

 ences in their serum reaction. By careful study of the behavior of these 

 bacilli in the serum of patients and in immune serum from animals he 

 not only showed that they were different from the original cultures 

 from cases of epidemic dysentery which, no matter what their source, 

 were found to be alike, but that they showed differences among them- 

 selves and apparently fell into two or more varieties. One of these 

 organisms culturally and by its serum reactions showed itself practically 

 identical with one of the cultures he had received from Flexner. 



Spronck 6 in 1901 described an organism isolated in Utrecht from 

 dysentery cases, which showed great similarity to the Shiga-Kruse 

 organism; but, when tested in the serum of a horse immunized against 

 true dysentery bacillus, showed practically no agglutination. He 

 placed this organism in the group designated by Kruse as the " pseudo- 

 dysentery bacilli." His communication is of importance, since it is the 

 first reported instance in which any investigator had recognized and 

 associated the so-called pseudo-dysentery bacilli with dysentery ap- 

 proaching the acute epidemic form in type. 



Following this work a number of investigators, including Vedder 

 and Duval, 7 Flexner, and Shiga 8 himself, published communications in 

 which they claimed identity for the various forms previously described. 



In 1902 Park 9 and Dunham described an organism which they 

 found in a small outbreak of dysentery occurring in Maine. This 

 organism differed from most of those previously described in that it 

 was found to produce indol in pepton solutions. 



In the same year Martini 10 and Lentz published an article in which 

 they attempted to differentiate various dysentery bacilli by means of 



5 Kruse, Deut. med. Woch., xxvii, 1901. 



6 Spronck, Ref. Baumgarten's Jahresber., 1901. 



7 Vedder and Duval, Jour. Exp. Med., vi, 1902. 

 6 Shiga, Zeit. f. Hyg., 41, 1902. 



9 Park and Dunham, N. Y. Univ. Bull, of Med. Sci., 1902. 

 1 Martini und Lentz, Zeit. f. Hyg. : xli, 1902. 



