The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-12-07

| ployed upon animals at the Mayo
laboratories.
What is described as a ''peculial
polymorphous streptococcus has
been isolated by the men, often in
| large numbers, from the throat, ton
| sils and assesses in the tonsils oi
I cases of acute infantile paralysis
The same germ has been obtained
from the ventricular fluid after death
and the blood of living patient. IN
one case. The colonies of one strep,
| tococci thus isolated after emulsion
in the sterile air chamber, are in each
| instance described as consisting OF
fine, slightly green colonies. In
different culture, the germ has as
sumed different sizes. Apparently it
thrives more on some than on others
In some cases it is so small as to be
quite invisible under even the most
powerful microscope and easily filter
able through dense porcelain. In
others it is readily discerned and in
still others it has assumed size at
least two-thirds larger than that
which represents it's Lowest visibili-
ty," as the naval officers say.
| Succeeding steps in the experiment
tation disclose as fascinating a chain
of circumstantial evidence as any
thing ever devised by the creator of
Sherlock Holmes. incubation OF
rabbits, dogs and monkeys with the
germ taken from human beings has
| been followed in every case by the
onset of what is called characteris-
tic poliomyelitis, or infanti1e paraly-
sis. The symptoms produced in the
animals are in every respect the same
as those witnessed in human beings.
| Cultures made from dogs and rab-
bits dead of the disease, when in
| jected into other dogs and rabbits,
have produced instant and fatal at
tacks of infantile paralysis.
Indeed, there is apparently no
missing link in the chain between the
fine, non-adherent slightly green
colonies or streptococci observed un-
der the microscope and the onset of
the disease in animals after it is in
jected either in the veins or spinal
cord. Furthermore it has been not
ed by the investigators that young
animals always were found more
susceptible to the germ than older
ones, just as children more frequent
ly catch the disease than grown peo-
pie.
Summing up the results of their
labors the three doctors say:
I'VE have isolated peculiar strep-
tococcus from throats, tonsils, alb
scesses in tonsils and from the CEN
trail nervous system in cases of polio
myelitis. Paralysis has been pro-
duced in animals of various species
by intravenous and intracerebral in
lection of cultures of this organism
and LESSONS of the gray matter of the
nervous system have been demon
strated. From the nervous system
of these animals, the streptococcus
has been isolated in pure culture,
while their other tissues were sterile,
it is remarkably polymophorous and
appears to grow large or small ac-
cording to the medium in which it is
grown, even after passage through
a Berkefeld filter.
Using the organism in it's large
form, paralysis has been consistently
produced in animals known to be in
susceptible to innoculation with ma
terial from epidemic polimyelitis as
heretofore practiced. After paraly-
sis had been produced in a series of
three rabbits, the strain caused char
acteristic paralysis and LESSONS of
poliomyelitis in monkeys. 1t appears
to us that the small, filtered organ
ism, which has generally been ac-
cepted as the cause of poliomyelitis
may be the form which this strep-
tococcus tends to take under anaero-
bic conditions in the central nervous
system and in suitable culture me-
diums, while the larger and more
typically streptococcic forms, which
investigators have considered con-
taminations, may be the Identical Or
ganism grown larger under suita BILE
conditions"