CHAPTER XV 

 WHOOPING-COUGH 



The Bordet-Gengou Bacillus 



The subacute, contagious, undoubtedly infectious disease of 

 childhood, characterized by periodic attacks of spasmodic cough and 

 laryngeal spasm, terminating in a prolonged crowing inspiration 

 and frequently followed by vomiting and prostration, known as 

 pertussis, or whooping-cough, "Keuchhusten" (German) and 

 "coqueleuch" (French), has long been subject to bacteriologic 

 investigation. Deichler, Kurloff, Szemetzchenko, Cohn, Neumann, 

 Ritter, and Afanassiew have all written upon bacteria which they 

 supposed to be the causal factors of the disease, but which time has 

 consigned to oblivion. Koplik* and Czaplewski and Henself de- 

 scribed micro-organisms that for some years attracted attention 

 and caused more or less discussion as to which might be the real 

 excitant of the disease or whether they were identical organisms. 

 As time passed, both observations lacked sufficient confirmation to 

 carry conviction of their importance, and they, too, fell into oblivion. 

 A still different organism was described by Vincenzi,t but also failed 

 to meet sufficient confirmatory evidence to prevent it from meeting 

 the fate of its predecessors. 



Spengler,§ Krausand Jochmann,|| and Davis** showed the frequent 

 presence of minute bacilli in the sputum and also in the lesions of the 

 disease. They were, almost beyond doubt, influenza bacilli. 



In 1906 Bordet and Gengouff described a new organism whose 

 importance was supported by such weighty evidence as the forma- 

 tion of an endotoxin sufficiently active to explain the symptoms, and 

 the fixation of complement by the serum of the infected animal. 

 This organism, therefore, presents itself as sufficiently meritorious 

 to maintain the field for the present. 



Morphology. — The organisms, as found in the sputum, occur as 

 very minute ovoid rods of about the same size as the influenza 

 bacillus. They measure approximately 1.5 /x in length by 0.3 /x in 

 breadth. They do not remain united as chains or rods, but separate 



* "Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., Sept. 15, 1897, xxii, 8 and 9, p. 222. 



T Deutsch. med. Wochenschrift," 1897, No. S7, P- S86; "Centralbl. f. 



+ '■'" ^^^'' ^^'^- ^^' '^9?' ^°"^' ^°^- 22 and 23, p. 641. 



* Atti della Accademia di Medicina in Torino," lxi, 5-7; "Centralbl. f. 

 s ,;■ ^^^■' J^'^- ^9, 1898, xxm, p. 273. 



S Deutsch. med. Wochenschrift," 1897, 830. 

 *l ,,^^1'schrift fur Hygiene," etc., 1901, xxxvi, 193. 

 . , ..Jou''. Infectious Diseases," 1906, iii, i. 

 TT Ann. de I'Inst. Pasteur," 1906, xx, 731. 



441 



