A brief review of our knowledge of the relation of micro-organisms to diseases in man / by William Robert Smith.

  • Smith, William Robert, 1850-1932.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief review of our knowledge of the relation of micro-organisms to diseases in man / by William Robert Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    also obtained from a horse which had suffered from glanders of the lungs, liver, spleen, and septum nasi; after treatment by various staining agents these were examined microscopic- ally, and fine rods, about the size of a tubercle-bacillus, were occasionally found. Cultivations were made from a number of small particles taken from the nodules present in the lungs and spleen of a horse which had suffered from glanders, on the blood-serum of a horse, and in three days numerous transparent droplets were found on the surface, which, upon microscopic examin- ation, were found to consist of bacilli, presenting the same characters as those previously found in the nodules ; they are very minute, being about the size of a tubercle bacillus ; they are brought out by staining with a concentrated watery solution of methylene blue, and then washing with very dilute acetic acid, the water subsequently being extracted by alcohol and the preparations cleared in cedar-oil. These cultivations were carried through four generations, and then a small quantity was inoculated on the mucous membrane of the nose, and on both shoulders of an old, but otherwise healthy, horse ; in two days the animal exhibited signs of high fever, and in eight days showed all the well- known clinical appearances of glanders. The animal was killed some five or six weeks after inoculation, when, upon examining the body, evidence was forthcoming that the animal had suffered from old glanders, so that the experi- ment could not be considered as absolutely conclusive ; fresh cultivations were, however, made from the glanders material upon sterilised blood-serum, with the residt that the same transparent droplets in the course of three days appeared, which were found to contain the same bacilli. The same organism was obtained by cultivation from several other glandered horses. Rabbits, mice, and guinea-pigs were inoculated with the cultivation. In the rabbits, in some cases, local ulcerations and swelling of the neighbouring glands were found ; in others ulcers on the septum nasi and glanders nodules in the lungs. Inoculation of white-mice gave negative results; but of field-mice the results were satisfactory ; at the post-mortevi examination of these the spleen and liver were found infil- trated with small yellowish-grey nodules, from which the bacilli could be obtained. ■ In guinea-pigs the results were well marked at the site of the inoculation. An ulcer appears with a very indurated base, which speedily enlarges; other ulcers follow, the neigh-