TREATMENT OF UNDULANT FEVER WITH ACRIFLAVINE

The treatment of undulant fever is still empiric. Symptomatic treatment can do nothing to shorten the usual duration, which varies from six weeks to eighteen months. As the economic loss from a disease producing disability for any such length of time is considerable, any method which tends to shorten that period should be of value. Vaccine therapy has been attempted with varying results. Reports by Chiriaco,¹ Gaté and Billa,² Fiessinger and Blum,³ Alfred Coury,⁴ Keefer,⁵ and Guiffre,⁶ are far from encouraging. Too often, no effect whatever on the course of the disease is noted. Colloidal metals have been used, as reported by Souleipe⁷ and by Chierici.⁸ Mercurochrome-220 soluble has been used by Ross and Martin⁹ and by Todd¹⁰ with indifferent success. Izar and Mastroeni¹¹ in 1927 found that acriflavine dyes have considerable bactericidal influence on Brucclla melitensis in vitro. In November, 1927,¹² they reported