spirochjET^ 377 



oculation. Early in 1918 the Trench Fever Commission/ 

 Medical Research Committee, American Red Cross, confirmed the 

 inoculation experiments of MacNee and demonstrated that the 

 virus resides in greatest concentration in the blood plasma and that 

 it is transmitted from man to man by natural infestation with 

 body lice {Pediculus humbnus) . The direct inoculation experiments 

 described in detail by Baetjer^ and the louse transmission ex- 

 periments described in detail by MacNeal and Peacock' leave 

 no room for doubt upon these points. This portion of the work of 

 the commission has been confirmed in all essentials by the simul- 

 taneous and independent research of the Research Committee* 

 of the British War Office, working in England under the presidency 

 of Sir David Bruce. 



Spirochseta Pallida (Treponema Pallidum).^ — Schaudinn and 

 Hoffmann in 1905 observed this slender spiral organism in pri- 

 mary syphilitic lesions, in fluid obtained from swollen lymph glands 

 in syphilis and in the fiver and spleen of a still-born syphilitic 

 fetus. The occurrence of the organism in syphilitic lesions was 

 quickly and abundantly confirmed by other workers. Cultures 

 were obtained in collodion sacs by Levaditi and Mcintosh in 1907. 

 Schereschewsky, and Muhlens and Hoffman obtained cultures 

 in gelatinized horse serum. Noguchi^ has carried out the most 

 successful cultural work and has succeeded for the first time in 

 causing syphjfitic lesions in animals by the inoculation of pure 

 cultures. 



Sf. pallida occurs naturally only in human syphilis. It is a 

 slender spiral 0.2 to 0.35^ in thickness and 3.5 to 15.5/* in length. 

 Its curves are narrow and very regular. It is actively motile, 



'Strong, Swift, Opie, MacNeal, Baetjer, Pappenheimer and Peacock: Medical 

 Bulletin, Am. Red Cross, March, 1918, i, p. 376; Trench Fever, Oxford University- 

 Press, 1918, pp. 446 -l-VIII. 



2 Trench Fever, Oxford Press, 1918, Chapter VII, p. 6i--74. 



' Trench Fever, Oxford Press, 1918, Chapters X and XI, p.- 143-274. 



* Transmission of Trench Fever by the Louse: British Med. Journ., Mar. 23, 

 1918. 



^ Journ. Exp. Med., 1911, Vol. XIV, p. 99; 1912, Vol. XV, p. 90. - 



