The bacteriology of dysentery in Malaya / by Henry Fraser.

  • Fraser, Henry, 1874-
Date:
1916
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The bacteriology of dysentery in Malaya / by Henry Fraser. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE BACTERIOLOGY OF DYSENTERY IN MALAYA. N this country dysentery is responsible for a large amount of the sickness and mortality. In 1914 there were treated in the Government hospitals 5,982 cases and 1,429 died. During the same period 5,355 deaths were recorded under the head of dysentery and diarrhcea, being 13.42 per cent. of the total recorded deaths. The hospital returns do not distinguish between amcebic and non-ameebic dysenteries, but in some hospitals systematic examinations of the stools are made and in a considerable number of cases amoebe are found. In the District Hospital, Kuala Lumpur, the examinations are made by Mr. R. W. Lazaroo, an experienced and careful observer. He found in 1914 that in 132 out of 459 cases amcebe were present and in 1915 amoebae were found in 117 out of 360 cases. Investigations were undertaken to determine the causative organisms in the non-amecebic cases, At the outset of an inquiry on bacillary dysentery difficulty is encountered in the determination of the characters of several of the organisms which have been incriminated. In 1898 Shiga isolated the bacillus, with which his name is associated, from the stools of patients suffering from dysentery; the bacillus was agglutinated by the patient’s serum. Following the work of this investigator, Flexner in 1900 announced the isolation of a bacillus from cases of dysentery in Manila and stated that the bacillus agreed in its morphological, cultural and pathogenic properties with the bacillus isolated by Shiga from the epidemic dysentery prevailing in Japan. Shiga believed his bacillus to be motile and Flexner ascribed moderate motility to his bacillus. Flexner recorded the production