Pneumococcus peritonitis : paper read in the Section of Pathology, at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, Cheltenham, July-August, 1901 / by J.H. Bryant.

  • Bryant, John Henry.
Date:
[1901]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Pneumococcus peritonitis : paper read in the Section of Pathology, at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, Cheltenham, July-August, 1901 / by J.H. Bryant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Reprinted from the British Mkdical Journal, September 21st, liiOl. PNEUMOCOCCUS PERITONITIS. PAPER READ IN THE SECTION OF PATHOLOGY. At the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, Cheltenham, July-August, 1901. By J. H. BRYANT, M.D., F.R.C.P., Assistant Physician to Guy’s Hospital. During the last fourteen months I have had the opportunity of investigating 3 cases of pneumococcus peritonitis, and in this discussion -on pathological conditions caused by the pneumococcus I shall confine myself to a few remarks on the pathology of this rare form of peritonitis. Very few cases of this nature have been reoorded in England; in fact I have only been able to find one at all fully worked out. Fisher, in a letter published in the Lancet on November 10th, 1900, in reply to a short leading article on the subject mentions the case of girl, aged 8, who was admitted into the Bristol Infirmary in 1899 suffering from acute peritonitis of five days’ duration. Abdominal section was performed, but no cause was found to account for the peritonitis. She died on the following day, and at the necropsy no lesion of the abdominal or pelvic viscera was found, in fact there was no septic focus discovered anywhere. Coverglass preparations of the pus showed capsulated dip- lococci and streptococci, and cultures showed the presence of the diplococcus pneumoniae. Most of the observations made on this disease and the cases reported have been by French observers. One of the first cases of pneumococcus peritonitis was de- scribed by Cornil in 1886. In the same year Netter demon- strated the presence of pneumococci in the peritoneal fluid of patients who had died from pneumonia, although in these cases there was no evidence of any morbid changes in the peritoneum. Since Cornil’s case a number of examples of this form of peritonitis have been described by French authors. Pneumococcus peritonitis is undoubtedly a rare condition, but I have no doubt in my own mind that if systematic histological and bacteriological examination of the pus from all cases of peritonitis were made, it would not be so rare as it appears to be at the present time.