STUDIES ON THE ETIOLOGY OF SPONTANEOUS CONJUNCTIVAL FOLLICULOSIS OF MONKEYS

Abstract

In the bacteriological study here reported, we undertook an investigation of the flora associated with spontaneous conjunctival folliculosis. Following the plan of Noguchi (2), monkeys and chimpanzees were inoculated with the different organisms recovered from affected tissues. By this means, we disclosed among the bacteria a new species, Bacterium simiae, which was found to be specifically active, in that it induced follicular reactions in the conjunctiva apparently indistinguishable from the disease as it occurs in nature. The specific action of the bacterium in animals is the more striking when it is compared with the innocuousness of other organisms isolated from cases of folliculosis, and also when considered in relation to the behavior of quarantined animals. While the disease arises spontaneously in stock animals, of some 300 normal rhesus monkeys— these being isolated in lots of ten to twenty and quarantined from 6 to 14 weeks—not one has as yet shown folliculosis. With the insignificant exception already mentioned (1), the experimental disease was produced only when the inoculum contained either folliculosis tissue or cultures of the simian organism. Apart from these findings, the experimental results indicate that (a) the bacterium has thus far been recovered only from folliculosis cases and not from other forms of conjunctivitis nor from normal tissues; (b) the microorganism has been isolated not only from affected conjunctivae of stock monkeys but also from the tissue of animals— macaques and apes—experimentally infected with the bacterium, and (c) such recovered cultures have, in turn, been found to be specifically pathogenic in normal rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees. We may therefore postulate from this experimental study that an intimate relation exists between Bacterium simiae and spontaneous conjunctival folliculosis of simians.