THE BACTERIOPHAGE IN DISEASE 223 



All of the observations are therefore comparable, whether 

 they deal with avian typhosis or with barbone in the buffalo. 

 These epizootics of very different nature were investigated in- 

 tentionally, that the general nature of the role of the bacterio- 

 phage in immunity might be the better established. 



One may at first be quite astonished that the intestinal bac- 

 teriophage, whose role can easily be conceived in infections with 

 intestinal manifestations, constitutes a defense of the organism 

 in septicemias. In reality, whatever may be the infection, the 

 pathogenic bacterium always gets into the intestine. Let us 

 take a localized disease, cerebrospinal meningitis, for example. 

 We know that the initial symptom is a rhino-pharyngitis and 

 that even healthy subjects who have been in contact with a 

 patient often carry the specific germ in the nasopharynx. There 

 can be no doubt but that a fair number of the meningococci 

 present in the rhino-pharynx are swallowed and pass into the 

 intestine. It is needless to insist on this, that, aside from a few 

 rare exceptions to which we will later return, whatever may be 

 the disease under consideration, the portal of entrance of the virus 

 is either the buccal route or by way of the respiratory tract. 

 In either case the ingestion of organisms is, it might be said, ob- 

 ligatory. The pathogenic bacterium is always at some time in 

 contact with the intestinal bacteriophage, this organism there- 

 fore is thus able to adapt itself to the bacteriophagy of the bac- 

 terium and to acquire a virulence. 



In the particular case of barbone the pathogenic bacterium is 

 found freely disseminated through the exterior world in con- 

 taminated regions. In an epizootic zone I have been able, in 

 two different trials, to isolate it from the mud of a marsh where 

 the buffaloes were accustomed to bury themselves. This is but 

 natural since the bacterium of barbone is found in the intestinal 

 tract of sick animals or of those which have succumbed. The 

 ingestion of the pathogenic bacterium by the animals which re- 

 main immersed for whole hours in a mire containing these or- 

 ganisms is necessarily frequent. If the animal which ingests 

 them has an erosion at any point in the digestive tract it is sus- 

 ceptible to infection. Otherwise the bacteria reach the intestine 

 and come within the range of the intestinal bacteriophage which 



