498 A MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY 



When material from a rhesus monkey inoculated with 

 syphilis is placed in collodion sacs which are introduced 

 into the peritoneal cavity of another monkey, a great 

 multiplication of the organism takes place in the 

 contents of the sacs a month after the operation. 1 

 Noguchi has obtained cultures of the Treponema pallidum 

 by making use of serum water (serum 1 part, water 3 

 parts), sterilised for fifteen minutes at 100 C. on three 

 days, to which fragments of fresh sterile tissue of a rabbit 

 (kidney, heart-muscle) were added. Rabbits are inoculated 

 with syphilis in the testicle and the spirochaete- containing 

 testicular material is employed to inoculate the tubes, 

 which are then incubated at 35-37 C. under strictly 

 anaerobic conditions. Multiplication of the spirochaetes 

 commences forty- eight hours after inoculation. The 

 primary cultures are somewhat difficult to obtain, but 

 once obtained sub-cultivation is easy. Both thick and 

 thin forms of the Treponema were obtained, which Noguchi 

 considers may be distinct varieties. 



Metchnikoff and Roux (also Griinbaum) found that the 

 chimpanzee is very susceptible to syphilis, and can readily 

 be inoculated from manj the T. pallidum being found in 

 the lesions. 



Macacus rhesus is also somewhat susceptible, likewise 

 the M. cynomolgus and the Chinese bonnet monkey, but 

 not the mandril. By several passages through a rhesus 

 monkey the syphilitic virus becomes attenuated, so that 

 in man it produces merely a local lesion. 2 Syphilis may 

 also be inoculated on the eye or testicle of the rabbit. 



Although the central nervous systems of rabbits and 

 monkeys are refractory to direct inoculation with T. 

 pallidum, Noguchi has succeeded in inducing some of the 

 symptoms (convulsions) and lesions of general paralysis 



1 Levaditi and Mclntosh, Ann. de Vlnst. Pasteur, xxi, 1907. 



2 Metchnikoff, Journ. of Prev. Med., 1906, August. 



