INTRACUTANEOUS REACTIONS IN PERTUSSIS

The reports of Modigliani and de Villa 1 and of Orgel 2 in the diagnosis of pertussis by intracutaneous reactions encouraged the medical world to hope that progress was being made in the control of this disease. Modigliani and de Villa made intracutaneous injections of a suspension containing a loopful of pertussis culture in 1 c.c. of distilled water. No reaction was obtained in diseases other than whooping cough, while an inflammatory reaction formed constantly in thirty-eight children with pertussis. Normal children gave negative reactions. Three children who had been exposed to the disease, but as yet showed no symptoms, gave a positive intracutaneous reaction, and a few days later developed whooping cough. Orgel used a suspension of pertussis bacilli in salt solution, 2,000 million organisms per cubic centimeter. Among twenty-five children in various stages of pertussis, all but one reacted positively, this one being in the incubation period. Among