50 
BACTERIOLOGY. 
Vaginitis 
per cent, nitrate of silver into the eyes immediately 
after birth. In adults the infection is usually intro¬ 
duced by infected fingers, handkerchiefs, or towels. 
Among children in institutions gonorrheal infec¬ 
tion of the vagina, vaginitis, occurs in epidemic form. 
It spreads from child to child with great rapidity, 
and is very difficult to check. The infection starts 
from one child so infected, and is spread by napkins, 
towels, or directly from one child to another. 
While infections with the gonococcus are gen¬ 
erally localized, they may in rare instances become 
general, causing arthritis, endocarditis, and menin¬ 
gitis. The toxin of the gonococcus is within the 
body of the organism, and is liberated only after 
death of the cell body. Dead cultures of gonococci, 
or vaccines, have been employed in the treatment of 
the infection, but have proven only partially success¬ 
ful in the complications such as arthritis, epididymitis, 
orchitis, and the vaginitis of children. Serum ob¬ 
tained from animals that have been immunized with 
living cultures of gonococci (active immunization) 
has also been only partly successful, probably because 
there seems to be a great many different strains or 
families of gonococci. 
Pneumonia is an acute infectious disease caused 
by a variety of micro-organisms, the chief one being 
the Diplococcus pneumonia, or the pneumococcus. 
Other bacteria, such as the streptococcus, staphylococ¬ 
cus, the influenza bacillus, the Friedlander bacillus, 
and typhoid bacillus, may also cause pneumonia. The 
