When Sanarelli announced his discovery of the bacillus icteroides, which he held to be the specific cause of yellow fever, upon rather weak grounds, Sternberg drew attention to the similarity between his bacillus X, isolated from yellow-fever cases, and Sanarelli's organism. Since then evidence has accumulated to show that these two microbes are distinct; this is now Sternberg's opinion1.
Sanarelli's claims in regard to his bacillus have been confirmed by numerous Italian investigators, including such names as Foà2. Most of these confirmatory studies were made in the laboratory and far removed from infected districts. Novy advanced the claim that inasmuch as Sanarelli's organism proved itself very resistant to low temperature, it could not well be the cause of yellow fever, which is a disease of warm countries and warm seasons. Sanarelli3 ridicules this statement and calls attention to the well-known fact that pathogenic bacteria in general withstand