experimental osseous sporotrichosis
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however, is not confined to the tonsils and theirneighbourhood, but the mouth may be the partattacked, the affection then taking the form ofan ulcero-membranous stomatitis and gingivitis.In conditions of lessened resistance, due to
overcrowding or other depressing circumstances,the disease may appear in epidemic form, and theimportance of this infection among troops is shownin a paper by Captain Frederick B. Bowman,C.A.M.C., which is published in the Proceedingsof the Medical Section of the Royal Society ofMedicine for March. In the cases which formthe subject of this report, embracing both officersand men, constitutional disturbance was well
marked, and great depression was a characteristicfeature. Ulceration occurred on the tonsils, gums,tongue, and mucous surfaces of the cheeks, and thesublingual and parotid glands were affected. Thebreath was peculiarly foul, and the patientscomplained of an offensive taste. The gumsbecame spongy and retracted and bled easily,and the teeth in some instances became looseand tender on being tapped. The temperaturevaried between normal and 102° F. The infectioncan be conveyed by dental instruments and alsoprobably by eating and drinking utensils. Thecausal organisms are readily recognisable in smearsstained by methylene blue or Giemsa’s stain, andcan be cultivated anaerobically in peptone broth
along with a little ascitic fluid and a fragmentof sterile tissue (Macleod’s method). An effectivetreatment for this condition consists in swabbingthe ulcers with a mixture consisting of half anounce of wine of ipecacuanha, one drachm of
glycerine, and three drachms of Fowler’s solution,and in cases in which the gums are affected thissolution should be carefully applied to all pockets ’around the teeth. The affection must be dis-tinguished from diphtheria, syphilis, and mercurial I
stomatitis, as well as from simple pyorrhoea alveo-laris. In the form which affects the gums the
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infection is very obstinate, and owing to the
depression produced is of considerable importance (from a military point of view as producing pro-longed incapacity for duty. tEXPERIMENTAL OSSEOUS SPOROTRICHOSIS.
WE have received from Dr. D’Agata, of the RoyalInstitute of Clinical Surgery at Florence, a resumeof a paper published by him on this subject. In1912 he communicated to the Italian SurgicalSociety a case of primary osseous sporotrichosisof the upper jaw in which the sporotrichium ’,Beurmanni was isolated. From this strain heinstituted a series of experiments on rats andwhite mice, inoculating into the peritoneal cavityand subcutaneous tissue over the bones of the hindlimbs a broth culture. Some of the animals died
spontaneously, others were killed at differentperiods from a few days to three months after theinjection. In the majority of the cases, from 20 to40 days after the peritoneal injection, he foundthe parietal and visceral peritoneum covered withsmall greyish-white smooth nodules varying insize from a pin’s head to a large shot. Histologicallythey showed three zones, corresponding to theecthymatiform, the tuberculoid and the syphiloidof French authors. In 10 out of 15 mice thusinjected there were osseous foci of sporotrichosisin various stages of evolution in the cartilages,and especially in the epiphyseal regions; therewere also cases which showed osteitis of the
hypertrophic variety. One of the experimentswas particularly noteworthy: that of a mouse
injected intraperitoneally and killed after 28 days.In this animal there were only a few lesionsin the parietal peritoneum, while in the lefttibia there were foci of diffuse osteomyelitis withintra-osseous abscess, and in the neighbourhood ofthe right tibio-tarsal joint a large serous cyst witha sporotrichositic nodule implanted in the wall onone side. Subcutaneous injections near the tibio-femoral joint almost invariably caused after 20-30days sporotrichotic inflammatory foci in the peri-articular ligaments, giving rise to local suppurationwhich frequently discharged externally. In someanimals subcutaneous injection produced gum-matous lesions at the site of inoculation. Smearsfrom the centre of these showed oval bodies suchas,have been described as representing the para-sitic form assumed by the sporotrichium Beurmanniin human lesions and in those produced experi-mentally in animals. -
DIFFERENT NAMES FOR IDENTICALSUBSTANCES.
WE have on several occasions referred to thedifficulties that may and do arise from the practiceof bestowing different names upon identical sub-stances. the position occurring more often in prac-tical therapeutics in connexion with the syntheticproducts. When a single synthetic product earnsmore than one name a real trouble to themedical profession is introduced, and we mayfairly call upon the great pharmaceutical chemistsand scientific drug-houses to assist us by refusingto perpetuate this trouble, an example of whichhas been brought to our attention this week. Thesubstance p-toluene-sodium-sulphochloramide wassuggested as a wound antiseptic by Dr. H. D.Dakin, working in conjunction with ProfessorJ. B. Cohen. This substance has already metwith considerable success. The theoretical basisof the work, full details of the preparation of thesubstance, and the early practical results of itsuse have been already published.! It is saidthat the name " chloramine" suggested by thescientific workers responsible for its introduc-tion, has already been appropriated, and the newname " tolamine " has been substituted by Messrs.Burroughs and Wellcome, who have registered tola-mine as a trade-name for chloramine-T. We feelthat it is necessary to point out that anyone orderingthe substance as " tolamine " will be using the pro-prietary name of a particular firm and not thename preferred by the authors of the substance.The designation of the substance as chloramine-T,as suggested by its originators, should, in ouropinion, be generally adopted, as the use of differentnames for identical substances is a serious sourceof trouble to medical men.
Mr. Charles Yelverton Pearson, M.D., F.R.C.S., hasbeen appointed one of H.M. honorary surgeons inIreland in the room of the late Sir Charles BentBall, M.D.
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Mr. S. H. Renshaw has promised JE2000 to
Bury Infirmary to endow two beds-one in
memory of his wife, and one in memory ofhis son who was killed in action at theDardanelles.
1 Brit. Med. Jour., Jan. 29th, 1916.