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Infective Methaemoglobinaemia in rats caused by Gaertner's Bacillus1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

A. E. Boycott
A. E. Boycott
Affiliation:
(From the Pathological Department, Guy's Hospital, London.)
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1. A spontaneous epidemic of Gaertner infection among rats was found associated with methaemoglobinaemia and, in some cases, anaemia.

2. Strains of Gaertner's bacillus isolated from these rats reproduced methaemoglobinaemia in fresh rats but not in rabbits, guinea-pigs or mice.

3. Other strains of Gaertner's bacillus from rats, guinea-pigs and human sources also caused methaemoglobinaemia either before or after passage through rats.

4. Other organisms pathogenic for rats did not produce methaemoglobinaemia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 1911 , pp. 443 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1911

References

2 British Medical Journal, 5 11, 1910.Google Scholar

3 The bacillus which turned canaries blue described by H. G. Wells some years since was, so the author informs me, entirely imaginary.

1 Journal of Pathology, Vol. XIII. (1909) p. 342.Google Scholar

1 Reports to the Local Government Board on public health and medical subjects, New Series, No. 52 (1911), p. 59. Dr G.H.K. Macalister informs me that these organisms have since been identified as genuine Gaertner strains.

2 Journal of Pathology, Vol. XVI. (1911) p. 145.Google Scholar

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3 As with the pigment which may appear in rabbit's blood in aniline poisoning (Jones, C. Price and Boycott, A. E., Guy's Hospital Reports, Vol. LXIII. (1909) p. 313)Google Scholar, and which may be sulphaemoglobin. In man aniline poisoning produces real methaemoglobinaemia.

4 Owing to the possibility of the presence of cyanogen compounds in illumiuating gas, it is best to use pure CO rather than coal gas to avoid difficulties of colour which might arise from the formation of cyanmethaemoglobin (see Haldane, J. S., Journal of Physiology, Vol. XXV. (1900) p. 230CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grünbaum, A. S., ib. Vol. XXXVI. (1907), Proceedings, p. iv)Google Scholar.

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1 Journal of Hygiene, Vol. VII. (1907) p. 359. I noticed the same lesions in the acute Gaertner rat epidemic which occurred here in 1908.Google Scholar

1 Non-lactose fermenters other than Gaertner's bacillus are so abundant in rats' intestines that, using as I did McConkey lactose-bile-salt-agar plates, it would be easy to miss a specific organism: no exhaustive search was made.

2 Albino rats were always used in order that the changes in the general appearance of the animal might be as obvious as possible.

1 See Haldane, J. S., Makgill, R. H. and Mavrogordato, A. E., Journal of Physiology, Vol. XXI. (1897) p. 169.Google Scholar

2 Journal of Physiology, Vol. XXVIII. (1902) p. 232. The present much improved form may be obtained from F. P. Rittershaus, 47 Gray's Inn Road, W.C.Google Scholar

1 Douglas, C. G., Journal of Physiology, Vol. XXXIX. (1910) p. 458.Google Scholar

2 That is, did not appear blue or anaemic on careful comparison with healthy white rats. It did not seem necessary to obtain actual samples of blood in all cases, and indeed it is hardly fair to the experiment to do so daily. The presence of small degrees of methaemoglobinaemia cannot therefore be positively affirmed to have been absent in all cases though, in the rats which were examined, no methaemoglobin was ever found unless a moderate suspicion of its presence had been aroused by the general appearance of the animal.

1 Journal of Pathology, Vol. XV. (1911) p. 358;Google Scholar

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1 Nasmith, G. G. and Graham, D. A. L., Journal of Physiology, Vol. XXXV. (1906) p. 32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Polyeythaemia is described in some human cases of chronic methaemoglobinaemia from poisoning with e.g. acetanilide, but the total haemoglobin does not appear to have been determined.

2 Journal of Pathology, Vol. XVI. (1911) p. 269.Google Scholar

3 On the advantages of preliminary cultivation in dulcite media for the isolation of organisms of this group, see Boycott, , Journal of Hygiene, Vol. V. (1906) p. 35.Google Scholar

1 As already noted, the bacillus is not readily obtained from the bowels. Considering however the facts that the evacuations are very often blood-stained and that the organism is present in the blood in large numbers, this is probably due to defective technique.

1 Guy's Hospital Gazette, Vol. XXV. (1911) pp. 73, 318.Google Scholar

2 These experiments were done at the time of year when the original epidemic occurred; this may be an important point as has been shown in the case of plague transmission (Journal of Hygiene, Vol. VIII. (1908) p. 279).Google Scholar

3 I am very much indebted to Dr F. A. Bainbridge who furnished me with the standard cultures of Gaertner's bacillus, B. aertryck, paratyphoid A, paratyphoid B, and B. suipestifer, which he used in his enquiry into this group of organisms (Journal of Pathology, Vol. XIII. (1909). p. 443)Google Scholar, and was also good enough to give me agglutinating rabbit sera prepared with them. See also on the differentiation of these Gaertner strains Dean, H. R., Proc. Roy. Soc. Med. 1911, Vol. IV. Path. Sect. p. 251Google Scholar; Sobernheim, G. and Seligmann, E., Zeitschr. f. Immunitätsf. Vol. VII. (1910) p. 342.Google Scholar

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1 I have been over most of the ground with rats' blood and haemoglobin without finding that they differ from those more commonly employed.

1 Haldane, Makgill, , and Mavrogordato, , Journal of Physiology, Vol. XXI. (1897) p. 171.Google Scholar

2 Lewin, , Schmiedeberg's Archiv, Vol. XXXV. (1895) p. 401Google Scholar. I am much indebted to Mr. W. C. Ball who made some of this unstable substance for me: it produces nothing else but methaemoglobin in the blood of rabbits.

1 The spleen cannot be washed free of blood and no experiments were made with it.

2 Dr Rowland tells me that he has not noticed methaemoglobinaemia in plague-infected rats in which liver necrosis is generally extensive.

3 Lancet, 1906, Vol. II. p. 72.Google Scholar

4 Cf. the suggestion, strange enough, that cholera is fatal through nitrite poisoing; see Emmerich, R., Hymans, A.A., Bergh, van den and Grutterink, A. in Berliner klin. Woch. 1909, pp. 2008, 2229; and 1910, pp. 779 and 1320Google Scholar; Choukewitch, J., Ann. Inst. Past. Vol. XXV. (1911) p. 433.Google Scholar

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1 Cf. Logie, W. J., Journal of Pathology, Vol. XV. (1910) p. 146;Google Scholar

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