Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama (Volume 6) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos or missing text. Not indexed. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1911. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... (May 6th, 1911, Vol. LVI, No. 18, p. 1333) and are so appropos of the present discussion that they are worth quoting. The investigations above referred to have demonstrated "that the tubercle bacillus has remarkable powers of resistance which permit it to remain viable in the tissues of the host for great lengths of time and even without producing lesions. It may be recalled that various Investigators who have injected material from the lymph glands and tonsils of cadavers into guinea pigs, have produced tuberculosis in as high as 20 per cent, of the animals, although the glands were themselves free from either gross or microscopic evidence of tuberculosis, and were removed from bodies which showed no tuberculous lesions. Such a condition constitutes a true latent tuberculosis, even although there were no specific tuberculous lesions and its apparent frequency makes us more lenient than we otherwise might be to von Behring's theory that bacilli taken in cow's milk during infancy and remaining latent during youth and adolescence, constitute an ordinary source of tuberculosis in adults. "The cases in which a tuberculous lesion shows anatomic evidence of quiescence yet contains living and virulent bacilli, should be regarded as presistent and latent tuberculosis. Apparently caseous tubercles practically always contain living bacilli, even when their progress has been checked and they are surrounded by a well defined capsule. Until recently it was assumed that when calcification had taken place the lesion had been so long encapsulated that all the bacilli must be dead, but actual investigation has made it necessary to modify this view. Lydla Rabinowitsch injected into guinea pigs material from four calcified lymph glands of stony hardness, and in all cases tub...