Bacillus Capsulatus Mucosas 481 



Sanitation. — Pneumonia is undoubtedly a transmissible disease. 

 Exactly how infection takes place is not known, but seeing that the 

 infectious agent is in the respiratory tract, from which it is easily 

 discharged into the atmosphere during cough, etc., and the facility 

 with which it can then be inhaled by those nearby, it seems justifiable 

 to conclude that the primary entrance of the organism into the body 

 is through the respiratory tract. Pneumonia cases should be segre- 

 gated and treated apart from the general run of hospital cases. As 

 cases of pneumonia in neighboring beds may be occasioned by 

 pneumococci of different types, which to all intents and purposes 

 are different organisms, they may infect one another, thus bringing 

 about what seem to be relapses. To prevent this it is well to sepa- 

 rate the patients by sheets hung as curtains between the beds in 

 such manner as to make it impossible that drops of moisture from 

 the respiratory passages of one can find their way to another. 

 Wood* has shown that " the organisms in the sputum die off rapidly 

 under the action of light and desiccation. In sunlight or diffuse 

 daylight the bacteria die within an hour, and in about four hours if 

 kept in the dark. The danger of infection from powdered sputum 

 may, therefore, be avoided by ample illumination and ventilation 

 of the sick-room in order to destroy or dilute the bacteria, and by 

 the avoidance of dry sweeping or dusting. 



Bacillus Capsulatus Mucosus (FASCHiNGf) — ^Pneumococcus 

 (Friedlander)- — Bacterium Pneumonia (ZopfJ) 



General Characteristics. — An encapsulated, non-motile, non-flagellated, 

 non-sporogenous, non-liquefying, aerobic and optionally anaerobic, non-chromo- 

 genic, aerogenic and pathogenic organism, staining by ordinary methods but 

 not by Gram's method. 



This organism was discovered by Friedlander § in 1883 in the 

 pulmonary exudate from a case of croupous pneumonia, and, being 

 thought by its discoverer to be the cause of that disease, was called 

 the pneumococcus, and later the pneumobacillus. The grounds upon 

 which the specificity of the organism was supposed to depend were 

 soon found to be insufficient, and the organism of Friedlander is at 

 present looked upon as one whose presence in the lung is, in most 

 cases, unimportant, though it is sometimes associated with and is 

 probably the cause of a special form of pneumonia, which, ac- 

 cording to Stuhlern,|| is clinically atypical and commonly fatal. 

 Frankel points out that Friedlander's error in supposing his organism 

 to be the chief parasite in pneumonia depended upon the fact that 

 his studies were made by the plate method, which permitted the dis- 

 covery of this bacillus to be made more easily than that of the slowly 



! I,'!""- ^'^P- Med.," Aug. 25, 1905, VII, No. s, p. 624. 

 r'Spaltpilze," 188s, p. 66. 

 t "Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., 1892, xii, p. 304.. 

 § |Fortshritte der Medizin," 1883, 22, 715. 



II "Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc. (Originale), July 21, 1904, Bd. xxxvi. No. 4, p. 493. 

 31 



