BACILLUS DIPHTHERIA 



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no spores. It is not, at the present writing, possible to formulate a 

 classification of these organisms. They are apparently very numerous 

 and have been isolated from a great many different sources, both in 

 connection with the human body and in nature. Recently Bunting 

 and Yates have claimed that an organism of this group has etiological 

 connection with Hodgkin's disease. Studies by many other workers, 

 notably by Bloomfield and Fox, and studies going on in our own lab- 

 oratory show that organisms very similar to these strains can be isolated 

 from the skin, from the lymph nodes of healthy and diseased people, 

 ' from ascitic fluid in varying conditions, and from supposedly sterile 

 tissues. They are frequently present in the nasal mucus and in the 

 throat, and are so ubiquitous that any association of them with specific 

 disease must be very conservatively approached. 



Very similar to this group are the bacilli of pseudo-tuberculosis ovis, 

 isolated from necrotic lesions in the kidneys of sheep by Preisz and 

 Nocard. It is impossible at present to do more than indicate that the 

 "diphtheroid bacilli" are a large heterogeneous group, held together by 

 morphological and superficial cultural similarity and largely consisting 

 of saprophytes and probably harmless parasites on the human and 

 animal body. 



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