Friedmann has recently noted an outbreak of dysentery due to the Shiga type of bacillus which was instituted by a soldier returning to the barracks from a furlough.
There resulted 86 cases in the man’s regiment of which 49 belonged to his own squadron. The spread of the disease was traced to the latrines. The epidemic was suppressed by the enforcement of the most rigid rules of cleanliness especially as regarding washing of the hands after leaving the latrines.
The stools of the convalescents were examined and no man was discharged from hospital until his stools were negative for dysentery bacilli upon 3 successive tests in fourteen days.
Isolation of the bacilli from convalescents was obtained in 40 patients only for periods under fourteen days while with 27 others such carrying of bacilli lasted from two weeks to one month.
As the dysentery bacillus does not invade the blood stream we do not find it in the urine so that to a certain extent the dysentery bacillus carrier is less dangerous than the typhoid one.
There have been reports of isolation of Flexner and “Y” type bacilli from monkeys and rabbits but there is nothing to indicate that any other host than man is of importance.
Flies are undoubtedly of as much importance in the spread of bacillary dysentery as of typhoid.
The possibility of infection through the medium of soiled clothes, sent out for washing, is to be thought of.
There have been several instances of transference of the disease by the water supply.
In times of war, with large forces of soldiers, bacillary dysentery tends to become the most important disease encountered by military surgeons. During the Civil War there were 285,000 cases of dysentery in the Federal army.