The Stomach Spirochete Occurring in Mammals

Abstract

In 1893 Bizzozero discovered a spirochete in the stomach of dogs in Italy which he stated was in the parietal cells of the peptic glands. Salomon (1896), examining various animals in Germany, detected the same organism in the stomach of dogs, cats and rats, and was able to transmit it by feeding to the stomach of the mouse. He distinguished three forms morphologically and also found the spirochete to be actively motile with terminal flagella. Balfour (1906), in Egypt, observed spirochetes in gastric and intestinal ulcers of dogs and monkeys, produced by inoculation with a trypanosome (Trypansosoia dimorphon?). In the same year Krienitz (1906), in Germany, found three forms of spirochetes in the fresh stomach contents of a patient suffering from stomach cancer and later (1906a) studied the morphological changes resulting from alternations in environment. Afterward Regaud (1909), in France, found the organism by means of darkfield illumination and proved it to be a living micro-organism, notwithstanding that Carnot and Lelievre (1909) had described it as the secretion product of parietal cells. In the following year Lucet (1910) detected two forms of spirochete in lesions of a dog suffering from hemorrhagic gastro-enteritis. Ball and Roquet (1911), however, regarded this spirochete as identical with that described by Regaud and called it Spirochaeta regaudi. They stated, moreover, that this spirochete occurring in the normal stomach of dogs has probably no causative relation to hemorrhagic gastro-enteritis. Suda (1916), in Japan, also observed spirochetes in the gastric gland of dogs. The present paper is a report of investigations undertaken in connection with our encountering this spirochete in the stomach of a rat in the course of an examination of the alimentary tract (1917). Morphology.-The stomach spirochete is an inflexible spiral with a straight longitudinal axis, the transverse section being an ellipse, and is provided with one short, thin flagellum at each end. In the stained preparation, the most common type of this spirochete (Fig. 1) is a fine form measuring from 4.5 to 10.5,j and the number of turns is 4 or 5 to