Abstract of report on the origin and spread of typhoid fever in U. S. military camps during the Spanish War of 1898 / by Walter Reed, Victor C. Vaughan and Edward O. Shakespeare.
- Walter Reed
- Date:
- 1900
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Abstract of report on the origin and spread of typhoid fever in U. S. military camps during the Spanish War of 1898 / by Walter Reed, Victor C. Vaughan and Edward O. Shakespeare. Source: Wellcome Collection.
223/270 page 197
![it forms the first link in the cliain of evidence necessaiy to the dem- onstration of this relationship. Certainly if the bacillus were not present in all cases it could not be the cause,of the disease, and from what we know of other infectious maladies, the constant presence of this germ in typhoid fever is strong presurniJtive, but not conclusive, evudence that it is the cause of the disease. The fact that the Eberth bacillus is toxicogenic is corroboratiA^e evidence of its causal relationship to typhoid fever. If the geiun were not poisonous it could not cause the disease. Putting together the facts, (1) the germ is found in the body in all cases of typhoid fever, (2) it is not found in the bodj- except in typhoid fever, (3) it produces poisons, the CAddence that the Eberth bacillus is the cause of typhoid feA'er falls but little short of being conclusiA^e. IIoAvever, it must be admitted that there still remains some ground for argument. For instance, it might be said that the elaboration of chemical poisons bj’ a giA^eii micro-organism in artificial culture media is no proof that the same substances are produced Avhen the micro-organism multiplies in the human body. On this point, also, experimental evidence seems to be incapable of bringing us to an unquestionable conclusion. Granting that the Eberth bacillus forms the same poison or poisons in the animal body that it does in artificial culture media, it remains a diflScult task to demonstrate that the products of its groAAdh are the specific ijoisons of typhoid fcA^ej’. In the first ifiace, it can hardly ])c expected that the S3unptoms resulting from the relatively' slow ])ut long-continued elaboration of a poison Avithin the body can be identi- cal with those following the sudden introduction of a relatively large amount of the same poison inXo a healthj^ animal. In the second place, it is a Avell-knoAvn fact tliat many^ poisons A'ary quite markedly' in their effects upon different species of animals. For these reasons it would not be a matter of surj)rise if Ave possessed bey'ond question the specific poison or poisons of ty'phoid fever to find that these Avould fail to induce in the loAver animals a clinical jjicture of the sy'mptoms of tyqjhoid fev'er as it is seen in man. Therefore, it follows that, although neither the bacillus nor its chemical products produce in the lower animals the syuni^toms characteristic of typhoid fever in man, this micro-organism may' still be the specific germ and its prod- ucts the specific poisons of typhoid fever. It may' be of interest to make a bilef statement concerning our present knowledge of the poisonous ijroducts of the Eberth bacillus. In 1885 Brieger obtained from pure cultures of this germ a poisonous base which induces in guinea pigs an increased flow of saliva, fre- quency of respiration, dilatation of tlie pupils, profuse diai’rhea, mus- cular paralysis, and death Avithin from tAventy-foui- to forty-eight hours. Post-mortem examination of these animals shows the heart to be in systole, the lungs hyperaunic, and the intestines contracted and pale. This basic substance Avas at first believed to be the specific](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28063223_0223.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
