BACILLUS DYSENTERIC. 471 



9.6 per cent. ; while for 1736 cases occurring at the same 

 time and in the same locality, but not so treated, there 

 was a death-rate of 34.7 per cent. 1 



Through the studies of Vedder and Duval the 

 observations of Shiga, of Flexner, and of Kruse, upon 

 acute dysentery in Japan, in the Philippine Islands, in 

 Puerto Rico, and in Germany, are found to be appli- 

 cable to acute dysentery occurring in this country. 

 The micro-organism described by Shiga was found by 

 Vedder and Duval in 22 cases of acute dysentery 

 occurring in Philadelphia, Lancaster, Pa., and New 

 Haven, Conn.; those in Lancaster and in New Haven 

 having been institutional outbreaks of the disease. 2 



Kruse 3 states that 80 ^ 00 gramme of dysentery im- 

 mune serum protects a guinea-pig against the minimum 

 lethal dose of the culture. In 100 cases treated with 

 the serum the mortality was 8 per cent, as against 10 to 

 11 per cent, in cases without serum treatment. 



Holt 4 summarizes the results obtained in the treat- 

 ment of 87 cases with dysentery immune serum. De- 

 cided improvement was noted in only 12 of the patients. 

 These were principally hospital cases, and hence rather 

 grave forms of the disease. Another factor which prob- 

 ably operated against the favorable influence of the 

 serum is the fact that the serum treatment was generally 



1 The foregoing sketch is compiled from : 



Shiga: "Ueber den Dysenteric-bacillus (Bacillus Dyseiiteriae)," 

 Centralblatt fur Bakteriologie und Parasitenkunde, 1898, Abt. i. Bd. 

 xxiv. Nos. 22, 23, 24. 



Flexner: "On the Etiology of Tropical Dysentery," Philadelphia 

 Medical Journal, Sept. 1, 1900. 



'Journal Experimental Medicine, 1902, vol. vi. p. 181. 



3 Kruse: Deutsche mod. Wochenschr., Jan. 8, 1903. 



4 Holt : Studies from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, 

 1904, vol. ii. 



