RT Journal
T1 THe bacteriolytic action of bile on the pneumococcus
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1909
FD August 21
VO LIII
IS 8
SP 636
OP 636
DO 10.1001/jama.1909.02550080040006
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1909.02550080040006
AB Jaundice in pneumonia has generally been considered a very unfavorable prognostic sign indicative of an extreme grade of toxemia produced by the pneumococcus. If this explanation is true, the phenomenon first described by Neufeld1 in 1900 of the lytic action of bile on the pneumococcus stands in almost paradoxical contrast. If one drop of fresh rabbit's bile is added to 20 drops of a broth culture of pneumococci in a test tube, there is almost immediate clearing up of the cloudy fluid, due, as is observed in a hanging drop under the microscope, to complete lysis of the bacteria. Bile salts were later found to act in the same way. The reaction is specific, as no other organism is dissolved by bile, and it has been of considerable importance in differentiating streptococci from pneumococci. The so-called Streptococcus mucosus capsulatus, which in most respects behaves like a variety of pneumococcus,