An experimental examination of mesenteric glands, tonsils and adenoids : with reference to the presence of virulent tubercle bacilli / by Allan MacFadyen, M.D., and Alfred MacConkey, M.B. from the Bacteriological Department, Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine.

  • Macfayden, Allan, 1860-1907
Date:
[1903?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An experimental examination of mesenteric glands, tonsils and adenoids : with reference to the presence of virulent tubercle bacilli / by Allan MacFadyen, M.D., and Alfred MacConkey, M.B. from the Bacteriological Department, Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    much more frequently in the mesenteric glands than ordinary post-mortem examination would lead one to suppose. One point of interest to which we would like to draw attention was the detection by us of the tubercle bacillus in the mesenteric glands of a stillborn child. As regards the other glandular tissues examined—that is, tonsils and adenoids—the material was obtained as the result of opera¬ tions for the removal of the enlarged organs, and our thanks are due to Dr. Lambert Lack and the resident medical officer at the Throat Hospital, Golden Square, for the material. The ages of the patients varied from 2 to 21 years, all but two being under 17, and the majority under 11. The procedure adopted was the same as in the case of the mesenteric glands. Only those cases were counted in which the inoculated animals lived from one to two months. We were enabled to obtain results from forty-four cases of adenoids and thirty-four cases of tonsils. As these tisues were diseased it is a justifiable presumption that their power of resist¬ ance to the invasion of organisms was lowered, and that if virulent tubercle bacilli were not infrequently present in the throat, they would be found more particularly in situations such as those examined. The results, however, obtained have been entirely negative. In not a single case were there any naked-eye signs of tubercle, nor were tubercle bacilli found on microscopical examina¬ tion of the organs of the experimental animals. We may, there¬ fore, conclude that there are not usually present in the tonsils and adenoids tubercle bacilli capable of conveying the disease to that most susceptible animal, the guinea pig. The virulent organisms found to be present in the tonsils and adenoids examined belonged almost entirely to the group of the micrococci. John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, Ltd., Great Titchfield Street, London, W.