716 THE BLOOD-INHABITING SPIROCILETES 



[Noguchi has succeeded in cultivating S. recurrentis, S. duttoni, S. rossii 

 and S. nowyi in test tubes. 



Noguchi' s method. The most satisfactory of the methods employed appears 

 to be the following. Place a piece of fresh rabbit kidney in a sterile test 

 tube, add a few drops of citrated blood from the heart of an infected mouse 

 or rat and then about 15 c.c. of sterile ascitic or hydrocele fluid. A layer 

 of sterile paraffin oil may be poured on the surface to prevent evaporation. 

 Incubate at 37 C. Growth reaches its maximum about the 7th-9th day. 

 Sub-cultures may be sown with about O5 c.c. of a young (4th-9th day) 

 culture but it is well to add a small quantity of normal blood (human or rat). 

 Noguchi has sub-cultivated S. rossii twenty-nine times during a period of 

 6 months.] 



SECTION III. SERUM THERAPY. 



I. Once a man has recovered altogether from an attack of relapsing fever 

 he is immune to further attack. It is also as a large number of experiments 

 have shown beyond dispute that after recovering from an experimental 

 infection animals are immune [to further inoculation of the same species]. 



II. Gabritchewsky has shown that after the fever has subsided monkey's 

 blood is bactericidal in vitro. 



A drop of blood containing numerous Spirochsetes was collected from a patient 

 during the febrile period and mixed with a drop of serum taken from a monkey 

 during the apyrexial period : in from l^t hours the Spirochsetes became non- motile, 

 swollen " and in short altogether changed in appearance." When on the other 

 hand the blood was mixed with normal serum the Spirochsetes remained alive for 

 from 45-160 hours. 



According to Metchnikofi, and Soudakewitch, the altered parasites seen by 

 Gabritchewsky were merely artefacts. 



The agglutination reaction with the serum of persons who have recovered 

 or are still suffering from relapsing fever gives very irregular results. 



III. By inoculating a monkey with the serum of another monkey which 



had passed the crisis Gabritchewsky was able to induce 

 an early crisis (48 hours, against 72 hours followed by 

 a relapse in a control animal). 



xv ^ 05 =^^^fc>C < '-"' Bardach inoculated a monkey with a temperature of 

 f v^Spsgxf' / 39 C - and Spirochaates in its blood with 6 c.c. of blood 

 / from another animal taken 4 hours after the crisis and found 

 i i i, \x v that by the next day the temperature was normal and the 

 / I | ^jr / -*^ Spirochsetes had disappeared from the peripheral circulation : 

 ^j- i the temperature remained normal for 7 days then the animal 

 had another attack of fever and Spirochsetes re- appeared in 

 its blood. It is possible in this case that as a result of 

 FIG. 342. Rosette agglu- the inoculation of the serum the Spirochsetes were phago- 



(GtathV?stS!o an bl d ' yted but not destr y ed ' and escaping from the leucocytes 

 were the cause of the relapse. 



IV. Novy and Knapp demonstrated that the blood of spirochsete-infected 

 rats is both bactericidal and agglutinating. 



The Spirochsetes are agglutinated spontaneously in blood taken during the time 

 the temperature is falling while the blood of rats which have recovered has agglutinat- 

 ing properties. The Spirochsetes are agglutinated end to end often in long threads 

 (p. 714) or in rosettes or sometimes in irregular masses. 



The serum of rats which have recovered from an infection has slight pro- 

 phylactic properties (Novy and Knapp, Carlisle, Breinl) : it does not prevent 

 infection but prolongs the incubation period. This prophylactic property is 



