438 BERIBERI 



Typhus Fever. It has been suggested that the cause may be a pro- 

 tozoon transmitted by vermin. 



Recent work by Anderson and Ricketts has shown that the blood of 

 human cases is infective for monkeys. The virus does not seem to 

 pass through a Berkefeld filter and the epidemiology points to the 

 body louse as the transmitting agent. Nicolle reported the filter- 

 ability of the virus. 



Plotz has isolated a Gram-positive pleomorphic bacillus from the blood of typhus 

 patients as well as from the blood of guinea-pigs and monkeys infected by injections 

 of typhus blood. It is most abundant in blood taken four or five days before the 

 crisis. It only grows anaerobically and grows best in ascitic fluid sterile tissue media. 

 Morphologically it shows curved, straight and coccoid forms. The rods are about 1.5 

 micron long. The serum of convalescents shows complement-fixation bodies as 

 well as agglutinins. The organism has been named B. typhi exanthematici. 



Hort states that only blood recently taken from typhus patients will cause the 

 disease in monkeys while the same blood which has been incubated several hours 

 or days fails to produce the disease. Others, as well as Hort, doubt the etiologi- 

 cal relation of the organism of Plotz to typhus fever or the mild form of the 

 disease as seen in New York City and there known as Brill's disease. Tabardillo 

 or Mexican typhus is the same as typhus. 



Varicella. Entirely unknown. 



Whooping-cough. Influenza-like bacilli have been implicated. 

 Bordet-Gengou bacillus. 



OF TROPICAL CLIMATES 



Ainhum. A disease characterized by a constricting fibrous ring, 

 especially of little toe, often leading to spontaneous amputation. 



Beriberi. Various microorganisms and food factors suggested. 

 A form of multiple neuritis, occurring chiefly in countries where rice 

 is the staple food, characterized by oedema and marked cardiac and 

 respiratory embarrassment. The vagal involvement produces grave 

 symptoms. Rice from which the pericarp has been largely removed, 

 polished rice, implicated. 



Prior to the investigations of Fraser and Stanton the importance of the rice factor 

 in the etiology of beriberi was insisted upon by Braddon who thought that a poison 

 was elaborated by some organism which poison was contained in the beriberi pro- 

 ducing rice. This development was thought to occur in rice stored in damp places, 

 but Vedder has shown that storing undermilled rice in a damp place for a year does 

 not cause it to lose its anti-beriberi producing properties. The work of Eijkman in 

 showing that polyneuritis could be produced in fowls by feeding them on polished 

 rice and prevented when a diet of rice polishings was added to the neutritis-produc- 



