540 Infective Jaundice 



pigs, an uncertain degree of immunity, as shown by Pfeiffer's test or 

 guinea-pigs with the human serum, could be established. 



Treatment. — The blood of horses immunized with the vaccines 

 described above was tried upon 24 cases of infectious jaundice 

 with a mortality of 17.3 per cent., as against the untreated cases 

 of which Oguro gives the mortality as 40 per cent.; Nishi as 48 per 

 cent, and Inada as 30.6 per cent. Thus, with the employment 

 of the horse serum the-mortality seems to be reduced almost to 

 two-thirds. 



In a later paper Inada, Hoki, Ito and Wani* again report upon 

 the use of intravenous injections of immune horse serum in the treat- 

 ment of Weil's disease. A total of 41 patients had been treated, the 

 total death-rate being 23.7 per cent., as contrasted with 30.6 per 

 cent, in untreated cases. A thorough analysis of the cases and 

 results are given. 



RAT -BITE FEVER 



Spiroch^ta Morsus Muris (FuTAKi, Takaki, Taniguchi 



AND OSUMI) 



It has already been pointed out that spirochaetosis icterohemorrhag- 

 ica is one form of disease that may be caused by the bites of rats. 

 The "rat-bite fever" is, however, a disease that seems to be suffi- 

 ciently different in its clinical manifestations to constitute a sepa- 

 rate' entity. The affection, known in Japan as "sodoku," seems to 

 have been first described by Miyakif who reported eleven cases of 

 his own and added others collected from the Japanese literature. 

 Prior to his time, occasional cases were reported in the literature of 

 various countries — in 1840 in America, by Wilcox;! in France in 

 1884, by Millot-Carpentier;§ scattered cases have since appeared in 

 the literature of most countries of the world, and in 1916 eighty, 

 odd cases were on record. 



According to the description of Blake || rat-bite fever is a paroxys- 

 mal febrile disease of the relapsing type following the bite of a rat. 

 The wound heals readily, but after an incubation period varying from 

 a few days to a month it becomes inflamed and painful. Lymphan- 

 gitis and adenitis set in and are quickly followed by symptoms of 

 systemic infection ushered in by a chill and a rapid rise in tempera- 

 ture. There is extreme postration, severe generalized muscular pain, 

 headache, weakness and loss of appetite. Stupor, delirium and even 

 coma may supervene. There is muscular pain and rigidity and the 

 tendon reflexes are frequently exaggerated. A characteristic exan- 

 them of bluish red, erythematous, sharply marginated macules ap- 



* Jour. Exp. Med., 1918, xxvii, No. 2, p. 283. 



t Mitt, aus der Grenzgebete d. Med. u. Chir., 1900, v, 231. 



t Amer. Jour. Med. Sci., 1840, xxvi, 245. 



iL'Union, Med., 1884, xxxvni, 1069. 



II Jour. Exp. Med., 1916, xxin, 39. 



