202 INFLAMMATORY AND SUPPURATIVE CONDITIONS. 



Diplo-bacillus of Conjunctivitis. This organism, discovered by Morax, 

 is a small plump bacillus, measuring I x 2 /x, and usually occurring in pairs 



(Fig. 76). It is non-motile, does 

 not form spores, and is decolor- 

 ised by Gram's method. . It does 

 not grow on the ordinary gelatin 

 and agar media, the addition of 

 blood or serum being necessary. 

 On serum it forms small rounded 

 colonies which produce small pits 

 of liquefaction ; hence it is some- 

 times called the bacillus lacuna- 

 tus. In cultures it is distinctly 

 pleomorphous, and involution 

 forms also occur. It it non-patho- 

 genic to the lower animals. 



Acute Rheumatism. 



There are many facts which 



F IG . 7 6. Film preparation of conjunctiva! seem to indicate the infec- 

 dipl - bacillus f conjunc> tive nature of this disease, 



and investigations from 



this point of view have yielded results of which mention may 

 here be made. A number of organisms have been cultivated 

 from the affected tissues by different observers, and have been 

 supposed to have a special relation to the disease. 



Achalme, Thiroloix, Bettencourt, and others of the French 

 school describe the occurrence of an anaerobic bacillus, similar 

 in appearance to B. anthracis, in many cases of acute rheuma- 

 tism, which they claim bears an etiological relationship to the 

 disease. Hewlett, in England, in the only case he examined, 

 isolated a bacillus similar in characteristics to that of Achalme. 

 And in America, Gwyn, from a case of chorea rheumatica, 

 isolated an anaerobic bacillus from blood cultures during life, 

 which he identified as B. aerogenes capsulatus, and which cor- 

 responded to Achalme's description of his bacillus ; neither 

 Hewlett nor Gwyn were certain in what relationships their 

 organisms stood to the disease. Foullerton and Rist declare 

 that Achalme's bacillus is identical to Klein's Bac. enteritidis 

 sporogenes (which in turn is the same as that first described by 

 Welch in America as Bac. aerogenes capsulatus), and has no 

 bearing upon the cause of acute rheumatism. But the organism 



1 We are indebted to Dr. J. W. Eyre for the use of this figure. 



