The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin.

  • Charles V. Chapin
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    the soil, and we are justified in considering the freedom from infection of the surface waters coming from such areas a strong evidence that the growth of the typhoid bacillus out- side the body does not commonly occur, and is a negligible factor in the causation of the disease. Cholera. — Early investigators, as Nicati and Rietsch, working with sterilized soil and water, found that cholera spirilla would live outside the body sometimes as long as 2 months. But all the more recent workers agree that under natural conditions, in unsterilized materials, the life of the organism is quite short. Loesner1 recovered the germs from dead bodies, which had been artificially injected, as late as the twenty-eighth day. Houston2 says that they usually die off in the surface layers of the soil in 12 days, though they may be kept alive longer if the soil is watered with liquid manure. Though Heiser3 states that the spirillum was found in the quiet water in the bends of the Passig river, no evi- dence was presented to show that it grew there. Gotschlich4 states that the spirillum is rarely found in feces for more than three days, and quotes Abel and Draer, Claussen and Dun- bar, and refers to Koch, as stating that it dies in dirty canal water in 24 to 30 hours. In unsterilized milk it may live from 1 to 2 days, but dies as soon as the milk becomes sour. All these agree that there is not the slightest evidence that the cholera spirillum can increase in numbers outside of the body. On the other hand, Emmerich and Gemund3 claim that it does increase in numbers in the soil, and may be found for two and one-half months. Paladino-Blandini8 also states 1 Loesner, Arb. a. d. k. Gsndhtsamte. Berl., 1896, XII, 448. 1 Houston, Rep. Med. Off. Local Gov. Bd., Lond., 1898-9 XXVIII 413. ' 3 Heiser, Philippine J. Sci. (Med.), 1908, III, 92. 4 Kolle u. Wassermann, Handbuch [etc.], Jena, 1904, IV, 108. 5 Emmerich and Gemund, Miinchen med. Wchnschr., 1904, LI, 1089 1157. 8 Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. [etc.], I, Abt. Ref., Jena, 1905, XXXVI, 53.