﻿224 The Philippine Journal of Science im 



rule two or three colonies on a plate. They are marked in the 

 index of cultures by numbers 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. It is more than 

 probable that these bacteria are mere casual contaminations from 

 the skin and play no part in the condition under question. 



As the disease is so widespread among the white people 

 in the Philippine Islands that 10 out of 11 whites picked at 

 random showed well-developed trichomycosis, it was thought use- 

 less to attempt transmission experiments on man, on account 

 of the objection that the person chosen for such experiment 

 already had the disease at the time of inoculation. Indeed, at 

 times the condition might be of such a minute extent that the 

 hair appears to be normal, but microscopical examination, par- 

 ticularly that of the stained hair in toto, reveals its presence. 

 Recourse was, therefore, had to experiments in vitro. Hairs 

 that were found by microscopic examination to be perfectly 

 healthy were placed in tubes of bouillon and sterilized ; the tubes 

 remained sterile after an incubation period of two days. Various 

 cultures isolated from different cases of trichomycosis were 

 planted in the bouillon containing the hairs and incubated at 

 37 °C. The experiments were not successful. 



The constant presence of Corynebacterium and its prevalence 

 in the flora of trichomycosis palmellina in every stage of the 

 disease, as found by repeated microscopical examination and 

 by cultures, as well as the direct connection of these bacteria 

 with the lesions of the diseased hair, as seen on microscopical 

 examination of the hair in toto, leaves but little doubt that, what- 

 ever the primary "causa lesionis" may be, the above-mentioned 

 class of bacteria, which are so widespread and so commonly 

 found on the skin and surface mucous membranes, are responsible 

 for the pathological condition known as trichomycosis palmellina. 



REFERENCES 



(1) Pick. Vierteljahrschrifte fiir Dermatologie und Syphilis (1876), 3, 



625. 



(2) WiNTERNlTZ. Arch. f. Derm. u. Syph. (1903), 66, 81. 



(3) Behrend. Berl. klin. Wochenschr. (1890), 27, 464. 



(4) Eisner. Arch. f. Derm. u. Syph. (1897), 41, 59. 



(5) SONNENBERG and COLOMBINI. Referred to by Winternitz (2). 



(6) Spiegler. Arch. f. Derm. u. Syph. (1897), 41, 67. 



(7) Rauber-Kopsch. Lehrbuch der Anatomic. 8 Auflage (1914). 



(8) Barber. Phil. Joum. Sci., Sec. B {\9\^), 9. 



