GENERAL BACTERIOLOGY 
39 
Intestinal Contents and Feces. —Colon-typhoid group, including the 
paratyphoids, the dysentery and B. fecalis alcaligenes. 
Mucosus capsulatus group. Tubercle bacilli, anthrax, 
tetanus and gas bacilli. 
(After Kendall, Bacteriology, 1917, p. 106.) 
XIV. Bacilli Carriers 
Occasionally individuals are met with who, while ap¬ 
parently healthy, harbor pathogenic bacteria in their 
bodies. While they seem to suffer no ill effects from 
this, they are a source of danger to those who come in 
contact with them. Such individuals are called bacilli 
carriers. In a majority of cases these carriers have had 
an attack of an infectious disease and have apparently 
recovered from it, but continue to eliminate the patho¬ 
genic bacteria which had caused the disease; some are 
but temporary carriers, while others may become 
habitual carriers, never ceasing to eliminate the bac¬ 
teria. This will be again referred to in the section deal¬ 
ing with infection and immunity, but it is well to call 
attention, at this time, to the very grave menace of 
such bacilli carriers. 
Many an epidemic, notably of typhoid fever and 
diphtheria, has been doubtless brought about by such 
bacilli carriers; in the case of typhoid fever, the bacilli 
appear to lodge in the gall bladder or the bile ducts, 
whence they pass into the intestinal canal and escape 
in feces. Women are more commonly typhoid carriers 
than men. Diphtheria carriers are most frequently 
found among children who often incite a diphtheria 
epidemic in schools. For this reason all cases of diph¬ 
theria and typhoid fever should have repeated examina¬ 
tion of throat cultures and feces cultures, respectively, 
after the patients have apparently recovered. In an¬ 
other section (on Diphtheria) a test will be described, 
known as Schick’s test, which has been devised for the 
detection of diphtheria carriers. 
