Abstract
On December 12, 1933, a nurse became suddenly ill and repeatedly vomited bile stained material. The following morning she had a severe chill, a temperature of 101 °F., severe headache, some rigidity of the neck and a doubtful Kernig's sign. A day later her temperature reached 105.3°F. and the meningeal symptoms were more marked. During the first 10 days of her illness the more prominent symptoms were: fever, headache, occipital tenderness, rigidity of the neck, strabismus, ptosis of left eyelid, diplopia, twitching muscle fasciculi and lethargy from which she could be fairly easily roused. There was gradual improvement after about the tenth day. Ten weeks after the onset there remained some speech defect, difficulty in feeding herself, dysmetria, sprawling gait, slight nodding of head, emotional instability and impaired memory.
Spinal fluid obtained December 15 was hazy and contained 812 cells per cu. mm. (95% small lymphocytes). The sugar content was 37 mg. per 100 cc. and the gold curve 0023321111. Subsequent specimens gave a paretic curve. Repeated Wassermann tests have been negative. Inoculated guinea pigs failed to develop tuberculosis.
Of special interest is the fact that an apparently new Gram-positive bacillus was obtained in pure culture from the spinal fluid on December 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 28, 1933; January 3, 8, 10, 18, March 8, April 12, 1934. Cultures made May 10 were negative. A rabbit inoculated intracerebrally with 0.5 cc. of the spinal fluid obtained on December 28 developed a severe encephalitis 2 days after inoculation. The same organism was cultivated from the brain tissue of this animal.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.