468 INFECTION AND IMMUNITY. 



stasis. Ordinarily cases of peritonitis in which 

 the colon bacillus is encountered also show the 

 presence of other pathogenic organisms, as strepto- 

 cocci or staphylococci ; this is always the case in 

 perforation peritonitis. Doubtless wrong conclu- 

 sions have been drawn in many instances as to the 

 bacteriology of peritonitis from the fact that the 

 colon bacillus readily overgrows many other bac- 

 teria in culture media. 



cystitis. Escherich attributes great importance to this or- 

 ganism as the cause of cystitis,, especially in chil- 

 dren, and states that it is probably the most com- 

 mon cause of cystitis, pyelitis and ascending sup- 

 purative nephritis. In fifty-eight of sixty cases of 

 cystitis in children the colon bacillus was found 

 either alone or in mixed cultures. An increased 

 agglutinating power of the patient's serum for the 

 organisms cultivated from the urine is noted in 

 these cases. Davis and others have described cases 

 of urinary infections due to B. coli differing from 

 the usual type in that the growth on various media 

 is less luxuriant and milk is not coagulated. 



Davis has found that the serum of patients with 

 such infections may be high in opsonic power and 

 low in bacteriolytic, or vice versa. 



Diarrheas. Great interest attaches to the colon bacillus in 

 relation to enterocolitis and dysenteric diseases. 

 Escherich speaks of an enteritis follicularis, or 

 colitis contagiosa, or colicolitis, epidemics of which 

 have been noted at different times. A number of 

 these epidemics occurred before the identification 

 of the dysentery bacillus, and certain of them may 

 have been true dysenteric infections. Neverthe- 

 less, dysentery bacilli are not found in all cases of 

 enterocolitis, and the probability that genuine 



