CHLAMYDOZOA 



539 



granular inclusions in the protoplasm of the epithelial cells. These 

 granules were at first round or oval, and increased in size, at the same 

 time becoming less dark, while minute red dots appeared, which 

 increased rapidly in numbers, while the blue masses gradually dis- 

 appeared. The granules formed cell inclusions, and the blue masses 

 were considered to be a reaction product on the part of the cell, and 

 were thought to be composed of plastin, while the minute red dots 

 were considered to be the virus. The reason why they considered 

 the blue granules to be distinct from the red points was because 

 the blue gradually disappeared, while the red points, or elementary 

 bodies, could be seen extracellularly situated. They inoculated 

 anthropoid apes successfully with trachoma, and found the same 

 bodies in this infection. These researches were confirmed by Greet 

 in the same year, and were extended in 1908 by Stargardt and 

 Schmeichler in 1909, who described a conjunctivitis neonatorum 

 non-gonorrhoica with typical Chlamydozoa. In 1909 Heymann 

 found the same bodies in four cases of gonorrhoeal conjunctivitis in 

 newly-born infants. This discovery was of the greatest importance, 

 because since the days of Kroner it had been known that the con- 

 junctivitis of the new-born was not always due to the gonococcus. 

 Linder, in 1909, and Wolfrum, in 1910, show'ecl that there were two 

 forms of blennorrhoea— viz., a conjunctivitis neonatorum caused 

 by the gonococcus, and a second caused by Chlamydozoa, this latter 

 disease being termed by Linder ' inclusion-blennorrhoea ' in contra- 

 distinction to gonoblennorrhoea. Linder maintains that the same 

 virus produced trachoma, inclusion-blennorrhoea, and that this 

 virus can be found in the male and female genital passages, and he 

 bases his opinion on the facts that he has been able to produce 

 trachoma in monkeys inoculated from a case of non -gonorrhoeal 

 urethritis in a man, from two such cases in women, and from several 

 cases of inclusion-blennorrhoea in infants. Further investigations 

 have shown that inclusion-blennorrhoea is histologically similar to 

 trachoma. 



Later, Leber and Prowazek in 1911 found a similar organism, 

 Lyozoon atrophicans in epitheliosis desquamativa, and in the same 

 year Uhlenhuth found inclusions in swine pest, and Botteri in spring 

 catarrh. 



In the meanwhile Halberstaedter and Prowazek had in their first 

 paper grouped with these cell inclusions the forms described in 

 smallpox, hydrophobia, molluscum contagiosum, epithelioma con- 

 tagiosum, and Lipschutz grouped the causes of dermotropismus, or 

 human dermatoses. Under the subhead Strongyloplasmata. Finally 

 the whole subject was gathered together and reviewed by Prowazek 

 in 1911 in his ' Handbuch der Pathogenen Protozoen.' Somewhat 

 similar bodies have been seen by Castellani in sprue in cells from the 

 oral mucosa, although most of these inclusions are non-granular, and 

 he doubts their parasitic nature. He has observed somewhat similar 

 bodies in conjunctivitis and in urethritis of a non-gonorrhoeal nature. 



Morphology. — On examining the cells from a case of urethral 



