The microbiology of syphilis / by Elie Metchnikoff ; translated by J. Keogh Murphy.

  • Mechnikov, I. I.
Date:
1908
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The microbiology of syphilis / by Elie Metchnikoff ; translated by J. Keogh Murphy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/106 (page 51)
    work I was joined by Levaditi, who had a perfect knowledge of all the technical details of bacteriology. Our first results were negative ; we then thought that the best means of finding spirilla was to search for them in the small clear vesicles which sometimes form the primary lesion in the anthropoid apes. This form of lesion had been found by us more especially in the orang-outang. We obtained drops of clear exudation from these vesicles and examined them microscopically as suspended drops. As living spirilla are distinguished by their great motihty, we believed that it would be easier to observe them by examining the exudate in a fresh state. We were completely disappointed by our results ; for the drops were always like a ‘ dead lake and we were never able to observe the slightest movement in any of the minute particles which we found suspended in the fluid in great numbers. As a control we prepared hanging drops from the serum of fowls affected with spirillar disease ; in these we could see without the slightest difficulty movements of the corpuscles caused by the spirilla, which were rushing about in all directions. The addition of a neutral red (Ehrlich’s) stained the spirilla almost instan- taneously, and they were then most clearly shown. The same stain added to S3^hilitic products never showed the presence of a spirillum. The methods of staining used by Levaditi gave the same result; in film preparations of S3rphilitic exudates we occasionally saw some few bacilli or micrococci which had got into the preparation by accident, but no spirilla. After very many negative results, I was discouraged, and had not the energy to undertake a fresh research. Because of these results, Roux and myself, in our third ‘ Contribution on Syphilis ’ (‘Annales de I’lnstitut Pasteur,’ 1904, pp. 661), expressed the opinion that the disease could not be attributed to any form of spirillum, but that it was probably caused by some non-motile organism. This view was soon to be proved to be erroneous, for it is indeed a spirillum that is the real aetiological cause of syphilis. Roux, he first succeeded in inoculating a chimpanzee with syphilis; thus to their work we owe a large proportion of the recent advances in our knowledge of Syphilis.—Translator. E 2