Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:50:58.473Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Rôle of the Twort-d'Herelle Phenomenon in Epidemics of Mouse-Typhoid1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

W. W. C. Topley ,
J. Wilson  and
E. R. Lewis
W. W. C. Topley
Affiliation:
From the Department of Bacteriology and Preventive Medicine, University of Manchester.
J. Wilson
Affiliation:
From the Department of Bacteriology and Preventive Medicine, University of Manchester.
E. R. Lewis
Affiliation:
From the Department of Bacteriology and Preventive Medicine, University of Manchester.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Summarising our results, and considering their probable significance, we should draw the following conclusions.

Our observations do not suggest that the dissemination of a bacteriophage is likely to have been the cause of the sudden decrease in the excretion rate of B. aertrycke, which was observed among the population at risk during the epidemic previously recorded (Topley, Ayrton and Lewis, 1924).

Our results are completely at variance with those recorded by d'Herelle in the case of fowl typhoid, a disease which shows many points of similarity to enteric infection in mice. The observations we have recorded do not suggest that the presence of the bacteriophage will, in itself, prevent the epidemic spread of infection, check an epidemic when it has once started, or appreciably reduce the mortality among the population at risk. In the light of these results we cannot share d'Herelle's optimism as to the probable results of the wholesale administration of the lytic principle in a public water supply. We do not suggest that the Twort-d'Herelle phenomenon has no significance in the epidemic spread of disease, but it does not appear to us that the problem is the simple and straightforward one envisaged by d'Herelle.

The results of the last experiment of this series are in substantial agreement with d'Herelle's experiments on barbone in cattle, so far as they concern the action of the lytic filtrate in causing an immunising response, though we have not obtained such strikingly uniform and satisfactory results.

We would note, in conclusion, that we have not yet tested the effect of the administration of the lytic principle, by injection, during the course of an experimental epidemic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , July 1925 , pp. 17 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1925

References

Gildermeister, E. and Hertzberg, K. (1924). Ueber das d'Herellesche Phenomen. Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. XLI. 228.Google Scholar
D'Herelle, F. (1917). Sur un Microbe invisible antagoniste des Bacilles dysentériques. Compt. rend. Acad. Sc. CLXV. 373.Google Scholar
D'Herelle, F. (1922). The Bacteriophage. Translated by Smith., G. H.Baltimore, U.S.A.Google Scholar
Ponselle, A. (1920). Abreuvoir pour Rats et Souris. Ann. Inst. Pasteur, XXXIV. 55.Google Scholar
Topley, W. W. C. (1921). Some Characteristics of Long-continued Epidemics. Journ. of Hyg. XIX. 350.Google Scholar
Topley, W. W. C. and Ayrton, J. (1924). A Technique for measuring the Excrction of Bacilli of the Enteric Group in the Faeces of Infected Mice. Journ. of Hyg. XXII. 222.Google Scholar
Topley, W. W. C., Ayrton, J. and Lewis, E. R. (1924). Further Studies on an Experimental Epidemic of Mouse Typhoid. Journ. of Hyg. XXIII. 223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twort, F. W. (1915). An Investigation on the Nature of the Ultra-microscopic Viruses. Lancet, II. 1241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zdansky, E. (1924). Kritische und experimentelle Beiträge zur Frage der Wirkungs-möglichkeit der Bakteriophagen in Warmblüterorganismus und in der freien Natur. Zeitschr. f. Hyg. CIII. 164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar