578 Bacilli Resembling the Typhoid Bacillus 



Bouillon. In bouillon the bacillus grows well, clouding 

 the liquid. No pellicle forms on the surface. 



Metabolic Products. The organism does not form in- 

 dol, does not ferment sugar, and in gelatin and agar-agar 

 containing sugars no gas is evolved. Acids are produced in 

 moderate quantities after twenty-four hours. Milk is not 

 coagulated. 



Vital Resistance. Its thermal death-point is 68 C. 

 maintained for twenty minutes. It grows slowly at ordi- 

 nary temperatures, rapidly at the temperature of the body. 

 The culture media should be alkaline. 



Pathogenesis. Bacillus dysenteriae was found by Shiga 

 in all the cases of epidemic dysentery studied in Japan, 

 by Flexner in the epidemic dysentery of the Philippine 

 Islands, and by Vedder and Duval * in the epidemic and 

 sporadic dysentery of the United States. Duval and Bas- 

 se ttf and Martha WollsteinJ found Bacillus dysenteriae in 

 cases of the summer diarrheas of infants, especially when 

 such diarrheas were epidemic. 



Diagnosis. Kazarinow found that when guinea-pigs and 

 young rabbits were narcotized with opium, the gastric con- 

 tents alkalinized with loc.c. of a 10 percent. NaOH solution, 

 and a quantity of Shiga bacilli introduced into the stomach 

 with an esophageal bougie, it was possible to bring about 

 diarrhea and death with lesions similar to those described 

 by Vaillard and Dopter. 



In these experiments it was found that rapid passage 

 through animals greatly increased the virulence of the 

 bacilli, and it was also observed that though 0.0005 c - c - of 

 a virulent culture introduced into the peritoneal cavity 

 would cause fatal infection, to produce infection by the 

 mouth as above stated required the entire mass of organisms 

 grown in five whole culture tubes. 



Eyre || has suggested the following method for the examination of 

 the fecal material and scrapings from dysenteric ulcers, the work of 

 differentiation and isolation being facilitated by the employment of a 

 special nutrient medium a modified form of the "lakmus-laktose- 



* "Journal of Experimental Medicine," vol. vi, No. 2, 1902; and 

 " American Medicine," 1902. 



f "American Medicine," Sept. 13, 1902, vol. iv, No. n, p. 417. 



J "Jour. Med. Research," x, p. n, 1904. 



"Archiv. f. Hyg.," Bd. L, Heft i, p. 66; see also "Bull, de 1'Inst. 

 Past.," 15 Aout, 1904, p. 634. 



|| "British Medical Journal," April 30, 1904, p. 1002. 



