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Study of the Bacteriolytic Serum-Complements in Disease: a Contribution to our knowledge of Terminal and other Infections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

Warfield T. Longcope
Warfield T. Longcope
Affiliation:
Resident Pathologist, Pennsylvania Hospital.
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It has long been known that individuals who suffer from such chronic diseases as nephritis and cirrhosis of the liver are very liable to develop an acute infection during the last stages of their illness. These patients rarely die of their chronic ailment. Often in the very last days, or perhaps hours, of the disease pneumonia, a dysentery, an acute endocarditis, or a streptococcus infection sets in, which quickly terminates fatally and must be regarded as the immediate cause of death. So familiar is this course of events that such pneumonias or dysenteries are now known as a fairly definite group of infections, namely, terminal infections. Often they are not recognized before death, but at autopsy their frequency and varying characters have been well shown by Flexner in his statistical and experimental study upon the subject; and though in some cases of terminal septicaemia the portal of entry was not easily found, yet it is important to note how frequently such local infections as leg ulcer or tonsilitis served as a starting point for the general invasion of bacteria. Of still more importance are his observations upon the bactericidal action of the blood of patients who have chronic diseases. The serum from six out of nine such patients showed a distinct decrease in its destructive power toward the Staphylococcus aureus and two of three patients whose serum did not show a diminished bactericidal action left the hospital improved.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 1903 , pp. 28 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1903

References

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page 32 note 1 For brevity's sake B.typhosus is styled B.typhi in the tables.

page 33 note 1 The designation “complement” is not wholly accurate, as the full normal serum was employed. The quantity used is, however, active through its complements wholly or in large part.

page 35 note 1 This term will be used to designate the serum obtained from the deseased individuals.

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page 50 note 1 After the completion of this article the important paper by Wright and Windsor (Journal of Hygine, 1902, II. p. 385) appeared. The results given in it in respect to the bacilli of typhoid fever and Asiatic cholera bear directly upon a part, at least, of my studies. The preliminary diminution in bactericidal power of the blood which occurs in anti-typhoid inoculation is of interest in view of the reduction in complement for typhoid bacilli which takes place during the course of typhoid fever. A point in our results upon which we fail to agree entirely, but which a study directed especially to its elucidation might readily clear up, is the evidence in my studies upon normal serum of a difference between the bacteriolytic complements for typhoid and colon bacilli, Wright and Windsor having found that the bacteriolytic body of normal serum is one for both the bacilli of typhoid fever and Asiatic cholera. So far as the individuality of the complement for typhoid bacilli is concerned my results with normal serum are borne out by the tests upon the serum of typhoid patients in whom the complement for the colon bacillus and some other bacilli is unipaired.

page 50 note 2 Flexner. Op. cit.

page 50 note 3 Laquer. Op. cit.

page 50 note 4 Neisser and Doering. Op. cit.

page 50 note 5 Hedinger. Op. cit.