Plague : how to recognise, prevent and treat plague / by James Cantlie.

  • Cantlie, James, Sir, 1851-1926.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Plague : how to recognise, prevent and treat plague / by James Cantlie. 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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    concluded that the case is not one of ])lague. There are numerous causes for its absence ; thus in the blood it is seldom found until late in the disease : in pus from bubonic sores of some standing the bacilli are usually absent, so that extreme caution has to be exercised in pronouncing that any given case is not one of plague should microscopical examination give negative results. Should micro-organisms (staphylococci, streptococci) other than plague bacilli be present in stained specimens, they will be stained by Gram’s method. Cultures.—The plague bacillus grows well on most of the common media employed in the laboratory. In artificial nutri- tive media at the temperature of the blood the bacillus grows readily, the most favourable temperature being 36° C. to 39° C. The medium used may be blood serum, agar-agar, glycerine agar, bouillon, gelatine (in temperate climates), etc. According to Wilm, “ the most favourable culture medium for the bacillus is a 2 per cent, alkaline solution of peptone containing 1 per cent, of gelatine.” On blood serum, at the end of the first or during the second day after inoculation a yellowish-grey, abundant growth occurs. On agar-agar the colonies are greyish-white in colour, of the size of a pin’s head at the end of twenty-four hours; discrete at first, they afterwards coalesce and form a thin semi-transparent film. On bouillon the growth of the bacillus resembles that of “ streptococcus pyogenes.” Haffkine s researches : Hajfkine s stalactites absolutely diag- nostic of plague.—No diagnosis of plague is reliable unless, in addition tO' the microscopic evidence, culture experiments substantiate the evidence. M. Haffkine worked out the bac- teriology of plague in India in a masterly fashion, and it is to his work we are indebted for an absolutely reliable bacteriological diagnosis of plague. The culture medium employed by Haffkine is a faintly alkaline, or neutral peptone bouillon, to which a few drops of oil (olive, cocoanut, or linseed) or fat (ghi = clarified butter) are added. Fresh cultures of the plague bacillus or recent animal cultures are sown upon the bouillon contained in a flask, and at the ordinary temperature of the room. The flask must be kept abso- lutely at rest. In from ten to twelve hours a diffuse cloudi- ness IS observed through the whole liquid. The cloudiness