CHAPTER XIV. 

 ACUTE CONTAGIOUS CONJUNCTIVITIS. 



THE KOCH- WEEKS BACILLUS. 



General Characteristics. A minute slender bacillus, non-motile, 

 non-flagellated, non-sporogenous, non-liquefying, non-chromogenic, 

 aerobic, and optionally anaerobic, staining by the ordinary methods 

 but not Gram's method, susceptible of cultivation upon special media 

 only and pathogenic for acute contagious conjunctivitis. 



Acute contagious conjunctivitis is a common and world- 

 wide affection, sometimes called "pink eye," and sometimes 

 erroneously called catarrhal conjunctivitis. All its char- 

 acteristics, and especially its contagiousness, point to its 

 being a specific disease due to a specific cause, and thus 

 entirely different from ordinary non-specific catarrh. 



Specific Micro=organism. The first bacteriologic inves- 

 tigation of acute contagious conjunctivitis was made by 

 Robert. Koch,* when in Egypt investigating a cholera 

 epidemic. While in Alexandria he examined the secretions 

 from fifty cases of conjunctivitis, finding the gonococcus, 

 or an organism closely resembling it, in one form of the 

 disease, and in a less severe form, a peculiar small bacillus. 

 He seemed satisfied with this observation, or had no time to 

 pursue the matter farther, for no cultivation or other ex- 

 periments are mentioned. 



The organism was observed from time to time, but no 

 serious consideration seems to have been devoted to it until 

 Weeksf published an account of what seemed to be the identi- 

 cal organism, which he not only observed, but also cultivated, 

 and eventually successfully inoculated into the human con- 

 junctival sac with the production of the disease. In the same 

 year Kartulis J in Alexandria succeeded in cultivating the 

 same organism. In 1 894 Morax published a brochure in Paris 

 in which he says that ' * the disease [which he describes under 



* " Wiener klin.Wochenschr.," 1883, p. 1550. 

 t "N. Y. Med. Record," May 21, 1887. 

 j "Centralbl. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenk.," 1887, p. 289. 

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