I.— A BRIEF REVIEW OF RECENT BACTERIOLOGICAL 

 WORK ON PNEUMOCOCCAL 

 By Abthur Eastwood, M.D. 



PAGE 

 2 



Introduction ------ 



The Starting Point 



Progress 



American Types 



South African Types 6 



Multiplicity of Agglutinins 6 



Precipitin Tests " " " 



Specific Soluble Substances -- 8 



Protection Test > <>u .Mice -------9 



Experiments on Monkeys and Rabbits ----- 9 



Inhibitory Properties of Immune Sera - - - - - 11 



Interrelationship of Types - - - - - - -13 



Leucocytes as an Adjuvant for Immunisation - - - 14 



The Work of Preston Kyes 14 



Recent French Investigations - - - - - -16 



Difficulties 18 



< Mii< hi-ions 19 



Introduction. 



The main problem is to reduce disease and mortality due 

 to pneumococcal infections, amongst which pneumonia is the 

 • important. 



For the last twenty -five years or more, the study of the 

 piu'umococcus has received wide attention from bacteriologists, 

 but they are still presented with difficulties which have not been 

 solved. 



Jh the earlier work, to which Washbourn and Eyre made 

 important contributions, persistent efforts were made to produce 

 antipneumococcus sera of therapeutic value. These attempts, 

 though not sufficiently successful to become of general utility, 

 have been a helpful stimulus to further enquiry. The next 

 advance warn made in Germany by Neufeld and his associates, 

 who laid the foundations for a classification of pneumococci 

 into serological types and endeavoured to show that the recogni- 

 tion of these differences in type must form the basis of work 

 on immunity. Development of this principle is mainly due to 

 the work done in the Rockefeller Institute from 1912 up to the 

 present time, and also to Lister's studies in South Africa on the 

 specific serological reactions of pneumococci and the value of 

 proj.hv lactic inoculation. 



