CHAPTER IV.
YELLOW FEVER.

THE bacteriology of yellow fever has been studied by
Domingos Freire, Carniona y Valle, Sternberg, Havel-
burg, and most recently by Sanarelli.

Sternberg, whose work is extensive and important,
says: u Facts relating to the endemic and epidemic prev-
alence of yellow fever, considered in connection with
the present state of knowledge concerning the etiology
of other infectious diseases, justify the belief that yellow
fever is due to a living organism capable of development
tinder favorable local and meteorological conditions ex-
ternal to the human body, and of establishing new cen-
ters of infection when transported to distant localities.n

Sternberg, at the Tenth International Medical Con-
gress (Berlin, 1890), reported the study of 42 yellow fever
autopsies in which aerobic and anaerobic cultures were
made from the blood, liver, kidney, urine, stomach, and
intestines, but the specific infectiotis agent was not found,
and the most approved bacteriological methods failed to
demonstrate the constant presence of any particular
micro-organism in the blood and tissues of yellow fever
cadavers. The micro-organism most frequently encoun-
tered was the Bacillus coli communis.

A few scattered bacilli were found in the liver and
other organs at the moment of death, but when a portion
of liver was preserved in an antiseptic wrapper and kept
for twenty-four to forty-eight hours the large number of
bacteria that developed were of many varieties, the most
-common being the Bacillus coli communis and the Ba-
cillus cadaveris.

The blood, urine, and crushed liver-tissue obtained

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