On the employment of dead bacteria in the serum diagnosis of typhoid and Malta fever and on an easy method of extemporising a blowpipe flame for making capillary sero-sedimentation tubes

Abstract

The utility of the method of serum diagnosis of typhoid and Malta fever has now been so firmly established, and the technique of this method is now so simple that this method of diagnosis will probably be everywhere employed by clinicians who have at their disposal pure cultures of the bacillus typhosus and of the micrococcus melitensis of Bruce, and who have further at their disposal a supply of culture media and an incubator and a microscope, or in default of a microscope a supply of capillary serosedimentation tubes.' Simple as this equipment may seem, there are very few practitioners at home, and there are practically none abroad, who have all these requisites at their disposal. We therefore consider that it may not be without interest to draw attention to the fact that the whole apparatus of culture media and incubators can be dispensed with by employing instead of living cultures of the bacteria of typhoid and Malta fever dead cultures of these same bacteria. These dead cultures can be very conveniently carried about or sent by post in sealed glass capsules.