496 Typhoid Fever 



They have been found to remain alive upon linen from 

 sixty to seventy-two days, and upon buckskin from eighty 

 to eighty-five days. Sternberg has succeeded in keeping 

 hermetically sealed bouillon cultures alive for more than a 

 year. In the presence of chemic agents the bacillus is also 

 able to retain its vitality, from o. i to 0.2 per cent, of carbolic 

 acid added to the culture media being without effect upon 

 its growth. At one time the tolerance to carbolic acid was 

 thought to be characteristic, but it is now known to be 

 shared by other bacteria (colon bacillus). The bacilli are 

 killed in a short time by thorough drying. 



Metabolic Products. The typhoid bacillus does not 

 produce indol. It produces a small amount of acid, as is 

 shown by reddening of litmus milk. It forms no coagulat- 

 ing or proteolytic enzymes. 



Toxic Products. The disproportion of local to consti- 

 tutional disturbance in typhoid fever and the irritative 

 and necrotic character of its lesions suggest that we have 

 to do with a toxic bacterium. Brieger and Frankel have 

 indeed separated a toxalbumin which they thought to be 

 the specific poison from bouillon cultures. When injected 

 into guinea-pigs the typhotoxin of Brieger causes salivation, 

 accelerated respiration, diarrhea, and mydriasis, and usually 

 leads to a fatal termination in from twenty-four to forty- 

 eight hours. Klemperer and Levy also point out, as afford- 

 ing clinical proof of the presence of toxin, the occasional fatal 

 cases in which the typical picture of typhoid has been with- 

 out the characteristic postmortem lesions, the diagnosis 

 being made by the discovery of the bacilli in the spleen. 



Pfeiffer and Kolle * found toxic substance in the 

 bodies of the bacilli only. It was not, like the toxins of 

 diphtheria and tetanus, dissolved in the culture medium. 

 This was an obstacle to the immunization experiments of 

 both Pfeiffer and Kolle and Loffler and Abel,f for the only 

 method of immunizing animals was to make massive agar- 

 agar cultures, scrape the bacilli from the surface, and dis- 

 tribute them through an indifferent fluid before injecting 

 them into animals. 



If the bacilli grown upon ordinary culture media are 



*" Deutsche med. Wochenschrift," Nov. 12, 1896. 

 f'Centralbl. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenk.," Jan. 23, 1896, Bd. xix, No. 

 23, p. 51. 



