YELLOW FEVER EXPEDITION 
5i3 
the already slowly moving blood stream to distant organs, where they may establish 
centres of growth even before death occurs, or are at least in position to take 
possession of the field, as soon as the vital spark has been extinguished. In the case 
in question, I believe that the true explanation of the presence of the organisms 
described is that suggested, for I have not found in the other cases examined any 
similar collection of bacilli, and can, therefore, not attach any importance to the 
observation so far as the etiology of yellow fever is concerned. In Berlin I fell upon 
a little group of slender bacilli in a capillary of the liver, and recently have found a 
similar group in a preparation of skin from a yellow fever patient 1 . . . . 
The bacillus above described, present in a single case, is then the only micro- 
organism found in the material obtained in Havana in 1887, so far as liver and 
kidney were examined.' When in Para we thought that possibly the discovery was 
due to accidental successful staining of the bacillus which we met with ; since my 
return staining of sections (paraffin) of the material obtained has not been successful 
in revealing groups of bacilli as had been hoped ; some suggestive appearances have 
been seen after heavy carbol fuchsin, aniline fuchsin and violet staining, but nothing 
definite enough for satisfactory recognition ; it is possible that the xylol, etc., used 
for the embedding has caused the same change as has occurred in the faecal 
specimens. 
In his conclusions 2 Dr. Sternberg remarks: 'Some of the micro-organisms 
present in the dejecta of yellow fever patients, as shown by stained smear prepara- 
tions, have not developed in the cultures made, either aerobic or anaerobic. One 
extremely slender filiform bacillus, which can only be seen with high powers, and 
which is quite abundant in some of my preparations, has never been obtained in the 
cultures made, and, no doubt, there are others of the same category.' 
Attention may also be called to some of the photographs given by Dr. Sternberg ; 
whether the organisms represented are the same as the other small bacilli cannot be 
said ; anyhow the sources of the cultures were not pure, and the investigators not 
very expert bacteriologists. On Plate XV, Fig. 6, is a figure of a fine bacillus found 
in a sample of Domingos Freire's vaccine (which was supposed by that author to be 
a pure culture of his c cryptococcus ') ; the specimen was stained with gentian violet 
and does not appear to have been coloured very intensely. On Plate III, Fig. 4, there 
also occurs a small bacillus concerning which he writes' : ' is from a slide mounted by 
Dr. Angel Gavino Ygi.esias in Dr. Carmona's laboratory. Associated with the 
large bacillus shown in the photograph, there is another slender bacillus in smaller 
number, which is seen on looking over the slide ' (it also appears more faintly 
stained). Dr. Sternberg does not appear to have thought of connecting these 
various fine bacilli with one another ; it is not possible for us to identify them as one 
and the same organism, but the quotations are of some interest in connexion with 
our own observations. 
1. Loc. at., p. 140. 2. Lot. at., p. 222. 3. Loc. at., p. 164. 
