RELAPSING FEVER 163 



and curing the disease if given at the time of chancre, 

 and materially improving the nervous condition of the 

 late stages. Lately Noguchi has made an extract of 

 spirochete bodies which can be used as a skin test for 

 syphilis precisely as tuberculin is rubbed into the skin 

 in diagnosis of tuberculosis. He claims good results 

 during the later stages, but as a diagnostic test of 

 recent infection it has not yet proven of value. 



Chancroid. There is a venereal disease known as 

 chancroid or soft chancre in contradistinction to the 

 primary hard chancre of syphilis. This is an acute 

 infectious condition due to the bacillus of Ducrey. 

 The lesion begins as a pustule, which soon breaks 

 down into a spreading ulcer. The disease is communi- 

 cated by direct contact usually. The bacilli are in the 

 discharges and therefore can be transferred through 

 the intervention of dressings. The bacilli are extremely 

 small, double rods, not motile, and form no spores. 

 These grow on laboratory media containing blood. 

 They do not possess a great viability under artificial 

 conditions, and therefore are destroyed in discharges 

 quite easily. Simple drying seems to kill them shortly, 

 and weak solutions of the ordinary disinfectants are 

 quickly, efficient. We assist in the clinical diagnosis 

 of chancroid by finding the diplo-rods, mostly within 

 leukocytes, in scrapings from the depth of the ulcera- 

 tion. 



RELAPSING FEVER. 



Relapsing fever is caused by spirochetes whose 

 species differ in the various countries, Europe, Africa, 

 India, and America. The transmission is only known 



