Volume 1

Reports of the Commission appointed by the Admiralty, the War Office, and the civil government of Malta, for the Investigation of Mediterranean Fever / under the supervision of an advisory committee of the Royal Society.

  • Commission for the Investigation of Mediterranean Fever.
Date:
1905-07
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Reports of the Commission appointed by the Admiralty, the War Office, and the civil government of Malta, for the Investigation of Mediterranean Fever / under the supervision of an advisory committee of the Royal Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    101/142 (page 99)
    pp. 30 and 34) was extremely susceptible to subcutaneous and cutaneous inoculation, replaced the monkey as the experimental animal; and in the second place the infected Stomoxys were fed upon the healthy guinea-pig in the intervals between feeding on the kid. The results- may be very briefly stated. In all, seven experiments were carried out, and in no case did infection of the kid with M. meliiensis ensue,, although in one of the experiments a kid was bitten by three separate batches of six, five, and six Stomoxys respectively during a period of 24 hours, at intervals of 96, 102, and 120 hours after the primary feeding on the infected guinea-pig. The details of these experiments are arranged in tabular form under the same headings as those used for the corresponding mosquito experiments on pp. 90 and 93. 8. Fleas and Bugs. The experiments carried out with blood-sucking Hemiptera and Aphaniptera were few in number and of very questionable value, even when considered in relation to the negative evidence they produced, and may be very briefly dismissed. Hemiptera—Cimex ledularia.—In view of the suggested association between certain cases of Malta Fever and venereal disease referred to by Kennedy* and the possibility of the infective virus being conveyed by domestic vermin, some 50 ordinary bed bugs were collected from low class brothels in the vicinity of the Camerata, Valletta, conveyed to the Laboratory and there killed and dissected. The stomach contents of each were then plated out in turn, but M. melitensis was never detected in, or isolated from, this situation. These were the only observations made with this parasite. Aphaniptera (a) Pulex irritans.—No observations were made upon the human flea. (b) Pulex serraticeps.—Dog fleas to the number of six were collected from a dog (which had been experimentally infected with 3L melitensis by subcutaneous inoculation), killed, dissected, and plated, but no evidence could be obtained to show that they harboured the micro- coccus. (c) Pulex scuirm'um.—^Again 14 rat fleas were obtained from various rats which had been experimentally infected with M. melitensis, and in whose blood M. melitensis was swarming. After being similarly dissected the plate cultivations established from the stomach contents likewise failed in every case to show the presence of the coccus. Two experiments were made in an endeavour to transmit M. melitensis from infected to healthy dogs through the agency of the flea:— 1. A healthy black terrier dog was inoculated subcutaneoitsly * Kennedy, ' Journ. Eoyal Army Med. Corps.,' toI. 4, 1905, p. 634 (13984) /, 2