Review of some of the recent advances in tropical medicine, hygiene and veterinary science, with special reference to their possible bearing on medical, sanitary and veterinary work in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan : being a supplement to the Third Report of the Wellcome Research Laboratories at the Gordon Memorial College Khartoum / by Andrew Balfour and R. G. Archibald.

  • Balfour, Andrew.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Review of some of the recent advances in tropical medicine, hygiene and veterinary science, with special reference to their possible bearing on medical, sanitary and veterinary work in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan : being a supplement to the Third Report of the Wellcome Research Laboratories at the Gordon Memorial College Khartoum / by Andrew Balfour and R. G. Archibald. 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.

    45/260 (page 41)
    Prout^ has described an outbreak of dysenteric diarrhoea at Bathurst due to the fouling Diarrhoea— of drinking water by the excreta of locusts. These latter consisted of spindle-shaped bodies continued which were composed of the fibrous indigestible parts of the grass matted together, and also of the siliceous spicules found in many grasses. The result of their ingestion was a mechanical irritation like that induced by ground-glass poisoning. Diphtheria. Most of the recent papers on this subject seem to deal with treatment, the preventive use of antitoxin, and the bacteriological aspect of the disease. Sambon,^ in an ingenious paper, seeks to prove a relationship between diphtheritic affections of man and those of the lower animals. He deals specially with avian diphtheria and states that if the diphtheria of fowls is transmissible to man, then the eggs of these birds must play an important part in its transmission, because diphtheritic patches have been found in the oviducts. The paper is interesting and suggestive, but is severely handled from the veterinarian standpoint by Mettam,^ who states that the historical references and most of Dr. Sambon's quotations will not bear inspection for a moment. He agrees with the opinion of Friedberger and Frohner relating to the transmission of animal diphtheria to man—it is a mere assumption due to ignorance of veterinary pathology. In a discussion on What is notifiable diphtheria? Williams^ divided the clinically mild and doubtful cases into three groups :—• 1. Patients without ordinary clinical signs of diphtheria, not definitely ill and yet anemic, with quickened pulses, nasal catarrh, and other local symptoms which bacteriologi- cally prove to be diphtheria. 2. Cases with any of these lesions but with no general symptoms of ill-health. 3. Persons who are quite well and have no local lesions but by cultural tests are found to harbour diphtheria bacilli. He is inclined to regard cases coming under groups 1 and 2 as requiring isolation and treatment, but as regards 3 he points out that there is no evidence that infected contacts can spread diphtheria until they have developed local symptoms. Higley ' describes a rapid method (fifteen minutes) of certain diagnosis by examination of stained smears from deposits or false membranes. The material for the smear is obtained by passing a looped needle flattened at the curve lightly over the false membrane. The stains used are : 1. Five drops Kuhne's carbolic methylene blue in 7 c.c. of tap-water. 2. Ten drops carbol fuchsine in 7 c.c. of tap-water. Method—Fix in usual way. Apply No. 1 for 5 seconds. Wash with tap-water and dry between filter paper. Apply No. 2 for one minute, wash, dry, and mount in balsam. Loeifier's bacilli then appear as dark red or violet rods, irregularly stained and often containing polar dots. The colour means nothing, the other points are characteristic. Pennington'' has a paper on the virulence of diphtheria organisms in the throats of healthy school children and diphtheria convalescents. He found that 10 per cent, of the former harbour in their throats bacilli morphologically indistinguishable from diphtheria bacilli. One half of these did not affect guinea pigs. About 30 per cent, of them were clearly attenuated, 14 per cent, moderately virulent. In the convalescent cases the great majority of the bacilli were highly virulent. His conclusions seem to be that, in healthy persons unexposed to infection, if diphtheria bacilli are present, they are usually non-virulent, that in healthy exposed people the organisms are markedly virulent and such persons are a fruitful source of infection, and that convalescents from diphtheria carry and disseminate virulent organisms as long as any remain in their throats, a period which may far exceed the duration of the clinical evidence of the disease. He submits that preventive measures should be based on these findings, but admits the practical diiiiculties of carrying such into effect. It is, therefore, evident that his views differ considerably from those of Williams. ^ Prout, W. T. (April 25th, 1908), Unusual Cause of Dysenteric Diarrhoea in the Tropics. Lancet, Vol. I. 2 Sambon, L. W. (April 18th, 1908), The Epidemiology of Diphtheria, etc. Lancet, Vol. I. » Mettam, A. E. (May 2nd, 1908). Ihid. * Williams, P. W. (September 16th, 1905), What is Notifiable Diphtheria? British Medical Journal, p. 647, Vol. II. ^ Higley, H. A. (May 20th, 1905), Rapid Bacteriological Diagnosis of Diphtheria. Epit. of British Medical Journal, p. 80, Vol. I. ^ Pennington, M. E. (Januuary 1st, 1907), The Virulence of Diphtheria, etc. Journal of Infectious Diseases, p. 36, Vol. IV.