Listerella Monocytogenes: A Cause of Meningo-Encephalitis in Man.

Abstract

In a preliminary note we reported the isolation from a human case of meningo-encephalitis of a new organism which we identified with the genus Corynebacterium. We wish at this tme to report additional observations and to correct the classification of the organism. The clinical history of the case is described in the preliminary note and has been more fully presented by Marcellus, Crouch and Terry. A noteworthy fact is that the organism was cultured from the spinal fluid of this patient 12 times over a period of nearly 4 months, though the period of acute illness lasted less than 2 weeks. A month after our report, Burn in Connecticut reported the isolation of a similar organism from 3 fatal cases of meningo-encephalitis in infants. Later, he reported a fourth fatal case, this time in an adult, and identified his strains with the genus Listerella. In this paper he refers also to a case reported to him by Dr. W. Allen of Hartford, Connecticut. From a fatal case of meningitis in a human adult in Scotland, Gibson isolated an organism which he thought belonged to the genus Corynebacterium. Morphologically and culturally the organism resembled our strain. In Norway, Tesdal described a case of fatal meningitis in man “caused by a Corynebacterium.” His description of the organism, however, suggests a Listerella. More recently Carey in Massachusetts has isolated a Listerella from a case of acute cerebrospinal meningitis in a boy. This patient recovered. These seem to comprise all the cases of human infection known to have been caused by Listerella. Since publishing our preliminary note our organism has been definitely identified as Listerella monocytogenes, originally described by Murray, Webb and Swann and isolated by them from a spontaneous disease in rabbits characterized by monocytosis. Similar organisms have also been recovered from a variety of diseases in animals, including a plague-like disease in gerbille in South Africa, meningo-encephalitis in sheep and in cattle, and a disease in chickens associated with massive myocardial necrosis (for a review see Seastone and Jungherr).