VIII. 



THE BACILLUS OF TYPHOID FEVER. 







RECENT researches support the view that the bacillus described 

 by Eberth in 1880 bears an etiological relation to typhoid fever 

 typhus abdominalis of German authors ; and pathologists are dis- 

 posed to accept this bacillus as the veritable "germ" of typhoid 

 fever, notwithstanding the fact that the final proof that such is the 

 case is still wanting. 



This final proof would consist in the production in man or in one 

 of the lower animals of the specific morbid phenomena which char- 

 acterize the disease in question, by the introduction of pure cultures 

 of the bacillus into the body of a healthy individual. Evidently it is 

 impracticable to make the test upon man, and thus far we have no 

 satisfactory evidence that any one of the lower animals is subject to 

 the disease as it manifests itself in man. The experiments of 

 Friinkel and Simmonds show, however, that this bacillus is patho- 

 genic for the mouse and the rabbit. We shall refer to the experi- 

 ments of these authors later. 



Before the publication of Eberth's first paper Koch had observed 

 this bacillus in sections made from the spleen and liver of typhoid 

 cases, and had made photomicrographs from these sections. His 

 name is, therefore, frequently associated with that of Eberth as one 

 of the discoverers of the typhoid bacillus. Other investigators had no 

 doubt previously observed the same organism, but some of them had 

 improperly described it as a micrococcus. Such a mistake is easily 

 made when the examination is made with a low power ; even with a 

 moderately high power the closely crowded colonies look like masses 

 of micrococci, and it is only by focussing carefully upon the scattered 

 organisms on the outer margin of a colony that the oval or rod-like 

 form can be recognized. 



Several observers had noted the presence of microorganisms in 

 the lesions of typhoid fever prior to the publication of Eberth 's pa- 

 per, and Browicz in 1875, and Fischel in 1878, had recognized the 

 presence of oval organisms in the spleen which were probably identi- 

 cal with the bacillus of Eberth. 



The researches of Gaffky (1884) strongly support the view that 

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