Abstract
Recent researches have shown that Lymphogranuloma Inguinale as described in the continental countries, and Climatic Bubo, as observed in the tropical and subtropical regions, are identical diseases caused by a filtrable virus which can be transmitted to various animals (Findlay 1 ). Although this disease has “so often been described in the United States in the past few years that it can no longer be considered as rare” (Stannus 2 ), only little experimental demonstration of the causative virus has been yet brought forward (Grace and Suskind 3 ). In our present report the possibility of animal transmission of local virus strains was studied. Seven cases of Climatic Bubo observed and diagnosed in the clinics of the Charity Hospital of New Orleans were used for this purpose. All the patients were colored laborers who had spent all their lives in New Orleans or its immediate vicinity, so that the possibility of an infection with a foreign virus, as it is so commonly observed among sailors, was very remote. The diagnosis of Climatic Bubo or Lymphogranuloma Inguinale was made clinically from the appearance of the inguinal buboes and was confirmed in every case by the positive intracutaneous reaction of Frei and the typical microscopic picture of the excised gland.
For the purpose of the transmission of the virus a 20 per cent emulsion of the excised lymph gland was prepared with sterile physiological saline solution and injected into various animals, except in one series of experiments in which the pus of the bubo was used. The sterility of the emulsions was tested by smear and culture and in some cases the emulsion was passed through a Berkefeld filter. White mice, monkeys (Macacus rhesus and Hapale penicillata), guinea pigs, chickens and frogs were used in our experiments.
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