Upon the intracellular constituents of the typhoid bacillus / by Allan Macfadyen and Sydney Rowland (from the Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine, London.).

  • Macfayden, Allan, 1860-1907
Date:
1903
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Upon the intracellular constituents of the typhoid bacillus / by Allan Macfadyen and Sydney Rowland (from the Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine, London.). Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/20 (page 618)
    Nachdruck verboten. Upon the intracellular constituents of the typhoid bacillus. [From the Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine, London.] By Dr. Allan Macfadyen and Sydney Rowland. With 2 Figures. The following paper contains an account of the results that have bee obtained as regards the typhoid bacillus since the publication of our firs communication in the Centralblatt fur Bakteriologie. Abt. I. Vol. XXX. 190! No. 20. The investigations undertaken had, as was then stated, a specif object in view, viz: the study of certain of the intracellular factors i health and disease by obtaining directly the cell constituents and elim: nating as far as possible excreted substances and those formed by th cell in a given environment. The ordinary laboratory methods could nt be employed for this purpose, and it was necessary in the first instanc to devise the means of carrying out the research. The progress of tb inquiry has therefore necessarily been slow, as many technical difficulty had to be overcome. The investigation has now been successfully ad vanced in various directions. The intracellular juices of healthy and morbi tissues, of leucocytes and of a number of micro-organisms have been ot tained and submitted to examination by the writers and their colleague The results, in so far as published, are referred to at the end of th paper. The experiments carried out with the typhoid organism and th results obtained were of the following nature. I. Experiments with reference to an extracellular typhoid toxin. The existence of a specific toxin produced by the typhoid bacilli has hitherto not been demonstrated although it has been assumed b analogy with other organisms, and by reasoning from the clinical couri of the disease. Such a poison must be either extracellular or intracellula The endeavours however, to demonstrate the production of an extn cellular toxin by the typhoid bacillus have not hitherto led to any definil results. That a toxin of this character does not exist in filtered culture of the organism is the common experience of bacteriologists. The typhoi organism when grown in the ordinary culture media does not produce an soluble products with marked poisonous properties. The absence froi such cultures of definite toxins might be due to the unsuitability of th soil used for growing the typhoid bacillus. We considered it of importance to retest the question, since th detection of such a toxin would constitute a great advance in the undei standing and the treatment of the disease. The first step in the search for the body in question consisted i substituting for the usual broth and peptone media, culture fluids a} proaching more nearly in constitution the natural body soils which clin cally support the life of the bacillus A number of experiments extendin over a year were made in this direction. We endeavoured to cultivat the typhoid bacillus in fresh juices obtained from various organs of tt