4 22 



Diphtheria 



of the culture is much more luxuriant and rapid when 

 horses' serum instead of beef or calves' serum is used. 

 Horse's blood can easily be secured by the introduction of 

 a trocar into the jugular vein ; 5 liters of it can be withdrawn 

 without causing the animal inconvenience or symptoms of 



weakness. 



The impossibility of 

 making an accurate 

 diagnosis of diph- 

 theria without a bac- 

 teriologic examination 

 has caused many pri- 

 vate physicians and 

 many medical socie- 

 ties and boards of 

 health to equip labor- 

 atories where bacte- 

 riologic examinations 

 can be made. The 

 method requires some 

 apparatus, though a 

 competent bacteriolo- 

 gist can often make 

 shift with a bake- 

 oven, a wash-boiler, 

 and other household 

 furniture, instead of 

 the regular sterilizers 

 and incubators, which 

 are expensive. 



Fi g> 124. The Providence Health De- Bacteriologic Di- 

 partment outfit for diphtheria diagnosis, agnOSlS. When it is 

 consisting of a pasteboard box containing a jpdrpH tn Trin i cp a 

 swab-tube and a serum-tube, both with 



etched surface on which to write the name bacteriologic diagno- 

 and address of patients, etc. s j s j n suspected diph- 



theria, or to secure the 



bacillus in pure culture, a sterile platinum wire having 

 a small loop at the end, or a swab made by wrapping a 

 little absorbent cotton about the end of a piece of wire 

 and carefully sterilizing it in a test-tube, is introduced 

 into the throat and touched to the false membrane, after 

 which it is carefully smeared over the surface of at least 

 three of the blood-serum mixture tubes, without either 



