Micro-organism of diphtheria with experimental results in animals / by Albert Wilson.

  • Albert Wilson
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Micro-organism of diphtheria with experimental results in animals / by Albert Wilson. 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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    experience has been that such membrane contains an uncertain variety of germ, being attached as dead tissue for hours or days in the mouth, with swarms of organisms continually in contact with it. It thus becomes a pabulum for any germs. Klein washes his membranes in sterilized salt solution, which, he says, removes most of the microbes. I think most bacterio- logists will regard this as open to error in isolating pure cultures. Yet by these means Klein states that he has obtained his bacillus in almost pure cultivation. Klein also states that the foreign organisms occupy the most superficial layer of the membrane. Surely one must admit that with their rapidity of growth, super- ficial organisms would penetrate throughout the membrane. Klein's bacillus is constant in the membrane, while Klebs-Loeffler bacillus is inconstant. In sections of membrane and tissue Klein found, with some ex- ceptions, his bacillus present only in the membrane itself, chiefly in the superficial layer. This might almost be taken indirectly as evidence against his bacillus being the cause of diphtheria. He then made many inoculations in various animals of pure culture of the Klein bacillus. The general result was local phlegmon, going on to form a necrotic tumour at the seat of inoculation. This tumour, due to necrosis of the tissue,— looking remarkably like the human diphtheritic membrane. But the same might he said of the dead tissue of a carbuncle, and I feel the assumption and the comparison to be wrong. In many of his fatal cases, he found fatty degeneration of the cortex of the kidney, and as many of the cats which died of naturally acquired diphtheria had similar kidneys, Klein assumes this as proof of his bacillus being the specific organism. But it is not so, for fatty degeneration of the cortex of the kidney occur in many forms of poisoning, in septicaemia, and in several acute febrile disorders, and is most certainly not pathognomonic of diphtheria. Next Klein produces corneal ulcer in the cat by rubbing mem- brane on an injured cornea, and finds his bacilli in the ulcer. But this is only a case of reaping what he sows, and bears no relation to the main question, for corneal ulcer is not diphtheria. He also inoculated cows and gets vesicles on the teats containing his bacilli. But this cannot be considered diphtheria. Cats supposed to be fed on these cows' milk became ill, and out
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