SOFT SORE, SYPHILIS. 233 



number of observers have failed to find it, and have also failed 

 to produce a characteristic soft sore by inoculation with pus 

 .withdrawn from a bubo under aseptic precautions. When a 

 chancroid condition follows in a bubo which has been opened, 

 they accordingly consider that it has been secondarily inocu- 

 lated with the bacillus. On the other hand, one or two observ- 

 ers have found the bacillus in unopened buboes. Audry, for 

 example, in a bubo before suppuration had occurred, found it 

 lying in little groups of two or three within leucocytes in the 

 lymph channels ; and in this case inoculation with the material 

 from the bubo produced the typical lesion. Krefting also found 

 it in buboes in some cases. It is therefore possible that the 

 buboes associated with soft sore are caused by the same organ- 

 isms, but that as suppuration occurs they in great part die off. 

 It seems certain at least, from the results of various workers, 

 that in many cases the ordinary pyogenic organisms are not 

 present in the suppurating buboes. 



In connection with the two diseases, gonorrhoea and soft 

 sore, it is of special interest to note in the case of the former 

 how restricted are the conditions of growth outside the body of 

 the organism which produces the disease, and in the case of the 

 latter, that attempts to cultivate the supposed causal organism 

 outside the body have entirely failed. 



However, Besangon, Griffon and Le Sourd claim to have 

 grown Ducrey's bacillus on human blood agar, as well as on 

 that of the dog and the hare, where all the morphological peculi- 

 arities before described were reproduced. In the condensation- 

 water growth in tube-cultures, the bacilli grew out in long wavy 

 chains, whilst in uncoagulated hare's blood the bacilli were so 

 short as to resemble chains of streptococci. The viability and 

 virulence of blood-agar cultures were maintained for a relatively 

 long period : a culture of the eleventh generation still produced 

 typical chancres, although on hare's blood the viability was very 

 brief. Due credence cannot be given to this research until 

 further confirmation. 



Syphilis. 



Regarding the relation of bacteria to this disease, we cannot 

 be said at present to possess much definite knowledge. Most 

 interest, however, is attached to the observations of Lustgarten, 



