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Observations on the Recurrence of Diphtheria in Cambridge in the Spring of 1901

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

Louis Cobbett
Louis Cobbett
Affiliation:
From the Pathological Laboratory of the University of Cambridge.
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The outbreak of Diphtheria which occurred in Cambridge and Chesterton last October and November has already been the subject of a paper in this Journal, which dealt with the facts observed up to January 5th, 1901. The present communication deals with a return of the disease in the Spring of this year.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1901 , pp. 485 - 499
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1901

References

1 From one patient who was dying when first brought under observation no swab was obtained.

1 It was not thought expedient, as a rule, to examine the parents or bread-winners, on account of the impossibility of isolating them without provision being made for the support of those dependent on them.

1 The last case belonging to this school was notified on April 3. After this only five cases, two alone confirmed by bacteriological investigation, were notified in the town. The last confirmed case was notified on April 9th: the last case (unconfirmed) on April 15th. The weather, which had been cold and wintry, was very wet from the 10th to the 16th. After this it cleared up and became fine and dry, and for a few days very hot; so that we passed abruptly from winter to summer. The diphtheria, however, had ceased to spread a week before the change in the weather took place. The cessation of the outbreak therefore cannot be attributed to the change of weather, though it is not improbable that it was connected with some more subtle seasonal influence.

1 Lubowski working in Ehrlich's laboratory (Zeitschr. f. Hygiene, Leipzig, Bd. XXXV., p. 87)Google Scholar found that he could not make non-virulent diphtheria bacilli virulent for guinea-pigs by repeatedly passing them through those animals.

2 Deutsche med. Wochenschrift, 1900, Hf. 32.Google ScholarPubMed

1 With two avirulent diphtheria bacilli of this kind Lubowski, , Zeitschr. f. Hygiene, Bd. XXXV. p. 87Google Scholar, in Ehrlich's laboratory succeeded in immunising animals and producing a serum which agglutinated not only these bacilli but also 23 different races of quite typical diphtheria bacilli, but which had no action on pseudo-diphtheria bacilli.

2 I have more than once seen similar abscesses form in guinea-pigs treated with large doses of virulent bacilli together with antitoxin. And also in an immunised horse treated with living bacilli. In the latter case the bacilli obtained from the abscess had retained their virulence.

3 Zur Differentialdiagnose des Diphtheriebacillus, Zeitschr. f. Hygiene, 1896, Bd. XXIV., p. 453.Google Scholar

1 This applies only to times when diphtheria is prevalent: at other times when none but sporadic cases occur it is possible, no doubt, to examine every ‘contact,’ and very desirable to isolate all infected persons.

1 From both these persons who refused to be isolated, the bacillus in question proved to be a non-virulent diphtheria bacillus; and it is interesting to note that no case of diphtheria was known to arise from contact with either.