Annals of the Pickett-Thomson Research Laboratory

Abstract

ALL pathologists will agree that our present knowledge of the streptococci, the roundcelled bacteria which form chains by successive division, is in great confusion, and that the reason for this is the lack of proper means of identification of the numerous streptococcal species. Yet the importance of the streptococci in both human and veterinary pathology is known to be very great and suspected to be still greater than has been actually established. Scarlet fever, puerperal fever, erysipelas, and the gravest forms of wound infection are accepted examples of streptococcal invasion, while acute and chronic rheumatism, in its many manifestations, heart disease, the enlarged tonsils and adenoids of youth, and the premature decay of teeth, are all diseases of possible streptococcal origin which, for elucidation of their cause, wait upon the identification of the infecting streptococcus by the bacteriologist. Annals of the Pickett-Thomson Research Laboratory. Vol. 3 (containing a Historical Survey of Researches on the Streptococci). Published for the Pickett-Thomson Research Laboratory, St.Paul's Hospital, 24 Endell Street, London, W.C.2. Pp. vi + 316 + 57 plates. (London: Bailliere, Tindall and Cox; Baltimore, Md.: Williams and Wilkins Co., 1927.) 42s. net.