BACTERIA IN CROUPOUS PNEUMONIA. 291 



out of eleven guinea-pigs are said to have succumbed and to have presented 

 the lesions of pneumonia. All of the mice injected died within twenty -four 

 hours, and at the autopsy the lungs were found to be congested and to pre- 

 sent foci of red hepatization. In a second series of experiments upon mice 

 they were made to inhale a spray containing the pneumococci in suspension. 

 Several of these animals died and are said to have presented a typical pneu- 

 monia. The ' ' pneumococcus, " surrounded by its characteristic capsule, was 

 found in the lungs, the spleen, the blood, and the liquid contained in the 

 pleural cavity. 



Upon this evidence Friedlander's "pneumococcus," which is now usually 

 described as a bacillus, was very generally accepted as the specific cause of 

 fibrinous pneumonia, and cultures were distributed throughout the labora- 

 tories of Europe bearing the label, " Pneumococcus of Friedlander." For 

 some time after the publication of Friedlander's paper all observations made 

 with reference to the presence of oval cocci or of encapsulated cocci in the 

 fibrinous exudate of pneumonia were supposed to confirm his discovery. 

 But now we know that there is another oval coccus which is far more fre- 

 quently present in the exudate of acute pneumonia, which also presents the 

 appearance of being surrounded by a transparent capsule less pronounced, 

 however, than that of Friedlander's bacillus but which is entirely distinct 

 from that of Friedlander and is probably the true pneumococcus. I shall 

 give the distinctive characters of this microorganism later. 



At the same time that Friedlander was pursuing his researches in Berlin, 

 Talamon, a French physician, was engaged in similar researches in the lab- 

 oratory of the Hotel-Dieu. His results were communicated to the Anato- 

 mical Society of Paris on November 30th, 1883, a few days after^ Friedlan- 

 der's communication to the Medical Society of Berlin (Germain See). 



" Talamon did not describe his microbe as having a capsule; according 

 to him, the pneumonia-coccus is characterized by its form. When seen in 

 the fibrinous exudate the microbe has an elliptical form, like a grain of 

 wheat. Cultivated in a liquid medium an alkaline solution of extract of 

 beef it is elongated and attenuated, and presents the appearance of a grain of 

 barley. On account of this appearance Talamon has proposed to call it the 

 lanceolate coccus. This organism is encountered in the pneumonic exudate 

 obtained after death, or drawn daring life by means of a Pravaz syringe 

 from the hepatized portions of the lung. Once only, out of twenty-five 

 cases, it was found in the blood of a patient at the moment of death." 



Talamon's inoculation experiments in dogs and guinea-pigs gave a nega- 

 tive result, but out of twenty rabbits injected through the walls of the 

 thorax into the lungs eight showed the chai-acteristic lesions of fibrinous 

 pneumonia. Prof. See says, with reference to the evidence in the case of 

 these rabbits as compared with that obtained by Friedlander in his mice: 

 " The rather brief description of the lesions obtained by Friedlander in the 

 mice inoculated by him leaves some doubt in the mind; for the presence of 

 foci (noyaux) of induration in congested lungs is not sufficient to character- 

 ize fibrinous pneumonia. But the lungs of the rabbits presented by Tala- 

 mon to the Anatomical Society in support of his communication leave no 

 room for discussion. As he observed, it was not at all a question of foci of 

 congestion, or of broncho-pneumonia, such as one observes habitually in 

 rabbits which die of septicaemia, but a veritable lobar fibrinous pneumonia 

 with pleurisy and pericarditis of the same nature. The naked-eye examina- 

 tion, as well as the microscope, showed no difference in the lesions produced 

 in the rabbit and the pneumonia of man." 



On another page Prof. See says : ' ' Af anassiew repeated in the laboratory 

 of Prof. Cornil the experiments of Friedlander and of Talamon ; by the cul- 

 ture in peptonized gelatin of the pneumonic exudate taken from the cadaver 

 he obtained two species of organisms, round micrococci of large and small 

 dimensions, and oval cocci which corresponded to the microbes described by 

 the two authors " (Friedlander and Talamon) "whose researches we have 

 just reviewed." This quotation indicates that Prof, See did not question the 



