BACTERIA IN DISEASE. I49 



The causes of these diseases have been very carefully sought 

 for by ordinary bacteriological methods with indecisive results. 

 Some of them no doubt are due to bacteria. In recent years 

 numerous observers have described a diplococcus or short 

 streptococcus as the cause of rheumatic fever or acute rheu- 

 matism. In the case of yellow fever Sanarelli described an 

 organism (bacillus icteroides) as its cause, but his view is not 

 upheld by most of those who have worked on yellow fever.* 

 The bacillus described by a number of observers as having 

 been found in cases of whooping-cough may also be the cause 

 of that disease. f Bacilli have also been described in cases of 

 measles on several occasions. Lustgarten has described a 

 bacillus found in the lesions of syphilis which resembles tubercle 

 and smegma bacilli. More recently Joseph and PiorkowskyJ 

 have cultivated another bacillus from cases of syphilis; how 

 much importance should be attached to it cannot as yet be stated. 

 As Roux and Metchnikoff succeeded in 1903 in inoculating the 

 chimpanzee with syphilis, it may be possible in the future to 

 subject bacteria alleged to be the cause of syphilis to the test of 

 animal inoculation. Recently Schaudinn and Hoffmaim§ have 

 found certain spirochsts in syphilitic tissue, papillomata and 

 the like, and it seems not improbable that the organism called 

 by them Spirochaeta pallida is the cause of syphilis. Metchnikoff 

 and Roux found the same organism in the monkeys which they 

 had successfully inoculated with syphilis. The organism is 

 only seen by special methods of staining. It is likely that for 

 some of the diseases mentioned other procedures than the usual 

 methods of research will have to be devised in order that the 



* Sanarelli. La Semaine Medicate. April 4, igoo. Reed and Carroll. 

 Journal Experimental Medicine. Vol. V. 



fSee Czaplewski. Centralbtatt jilr Bakteriologie. Bd. XXIV. i8g8. P. 

 865. 



^Centralbtatt fiir Bakteriologie. Vol. XXXI. 1902. Orig. p. 445. Berliner 

 klinische Wochenschrift. 1902. Nos. 13 and 14. 



§ Schaudinn und Hoffmann. Vorlaufiger Bericht iiber das Vorkommen von 

 Spirochaeten in S3^hilitischen Krankheitsprodukten und bei Papillomen. Ar- 

 beiten aus dem kaiserlischen Gesundheitsampte. Bd. XXII, Heft m, p. 527. 

 Berlin. 1905. 



