PRELIMINARY REPORT ON OPHTHALMIA 133 
condition may be due to the entrance ijito the tissues of a microbe with a low degree of virulence 
exciting an inflammatory process whicli culminates in the formation of the round cell mass ; one 
may say that, instead of exerting an irritating influence, it has a stimulating effect on the tissues in 
its sphere of action. 
The result is exemplified in those instances where half a school is attacked by this dire 
disease without any symptom occurring to indicate that any person has cojitracted the complaint. 
Conclusions. — That acute ophthalmia has not one specific microbe. 
That the short, slender bacillus is the cause of muco-purulent catarrh. 
That other organisms, after the catarrh has developed, may have some action in contiiming 
and intensifying the inflammation. 
That a morphologically similar bacillus having been discovered in the healthy nasal mucus, 
the nose very probably supplies a primarj' source of infection in a conjunctiva, the resistance of 
which to morbid irritants has previously been lowered. 
That in granular conjunctivitis no organism prevails to which the morbid condition can be 
assigned. 
That when acute symptoms develop in a granular lid the increased inflammation is due 
to the short, slender bacillus. 
That granules are not merely lymphoid collections but inflammatory nodules resulting 
from the entrance of an organism. 
That clinically and microscopically there is strong evidence that muco-purulent catarrh 
and granular conjunctivitis may be due to the same organism acting differently with different 
degrees of virulence, and, possibly, with varying resistance of the tissues. 
