592 TREPONEMATA, SPIRONEMATA, LEPTOSPIRATA 
bodies do not take the spore stain. In addition various semi-spherical 
bodies, some exhibiting refractile dots in their substance, are also 
found in old cultures, but none of these bodies appear to be spores in 
the ordinary sense. 
Spironema phagedenis stains with difficulty even with the more 
penetrating anilin dyes, and it is Gram-negative. It is colored red 
with the Giemsa stain. The organism is obligately anaerobic, and 
cultures in artificial media develop an odor suggesting butyric acid. 
Pathogenesis.— Xoguchi found that pure cultures of Spironema 
phagedenis produce- an acute inflammatory reaction at the site of 
inoculation (intradermal) both in monkeys and rabbits, but this 
inflammatory area does not ulcerate. Hoffmann and Prowazek^ 
inoculated 2 monkeys with material from a case of balanitis rich in 
organisms. They found some erosion had taken place at the site of 
inoculation after two to three days, with numerous spiral organisms 
in the lesion. Noguchi did not consider that his observations estab- 
lished the relationship of his organism to the lesion, and the experiments 
of Hoffmann and Prowazek are not conclusive. 
RELAPSING FEVER. 
The disease known as relapsing fever was described by Obermeier^ 
in 1873; he recognized the organism which received his name, Spiro- 
cheta obermeieri, now called Spironema recurrentis, in the blood of his 
patients. Obermeier's observations were made in Europe. Somewhat 
later the disease was observed in India by Carter, in Africa by Koch, 
and in America by Norris, Pappenheimer and Fluornoy. In 1896 Novy 
showed that the organisms found respectively in the relapsing fevers of 
Europe, India, Africa and America exhibited constant morphological 
differences which warrant their tentative separation into four distinct 
types: the European, Indian, African and American. Noguchi^ grew 
the several organisms in pure culture for the first time in 1912. He 
found that two factors were essential: a piece of fresh sterile tissue and 
a body fluid capable of forming a loose fibrin network when mixed with 
the tissue.'^ Longitudinal division was observed by Noguchi under dark- 
field illumination, but transverse fission also seems to occur. Relapsing 
fever appears to be transmitted chiefly, if not exclusively, by suctorial 
insects. 
SPIRONEMA RECURRENTIS. 
Synonyms. — Spirillum obermeieri, Spirocheta obermeieri. Spirillum" 
recurrentis, Treponema obermeieri, Spirochseta recurrentis. 
Relapsing fever is an acute contagious disease which begins abruptly 
» Centralbl. f. Bakteriol., orig., 1906, 41, 818. 
- Obermeier: Centralbl. f. d. med. Wissensch., 1873, 11; Beil. klin. Wchnschr., 1873, 
10, 152, 378, 391, 455. 
■' Noguchi: Jour. Exp. Med., 1912, 16, 199. 
