ADULT guinea pigs were inoculated with virulent human tubercle bacilli (Takagaki strain) intratracheally, and the histogenetio process of tuberculous lesion was observed histoohemically.

View full abstract

THE author has examined, in 7 cases of genuine diabetes, the phagocytic activity of the lencocytes in peripheral blood against tubercle bacilli of the Frankfurt strain, using slide cell culture in whole blood, and the electrophoretic analysis of the blood plasma proteins, during the course of Insulin treatment. Following are the findings of the experiment:

View full abstract

IN order to determine the active antigens contained in Old Tuberculin which participate in the hemoagglutination test in tuberculosis, Old Tuberculin was fractionated and after deciding which fractions were effective as sensitizing antigens, the chemical natures of the fractions were studied.

View full abstract

NNMEROUS studies have been made on the myocardial damage in tuberculosis, especially, those of electrocardiographic studies, but, there are hardly any on the electrocardiogram of the primary tuberculosis infect ion.
Likewise, only few reports have been published on the relationships between the stadium of tuberculosis and the myocardial damage or on the influence of streptomycin upon the electrocardiogram of tuberculosis patients. Thus, the changes in the electrocardiograms of tuberculosis patients on various stages of the infection have been studied and the results obtained thereof are as follows:
1. Primary infection stadium
Abnormalities of electrocardiogram, which showed to be transitory and reversible, were observed in quite s large number of the patients and the frequency of the appearance of such abnormalities was higher among the cases which showed a sudden strong positive conversion of their tuberculin reactions, increased blood-sedimentation rates and enhanced subjective symptoms. Electrocardiographic improvements were recognized as soon as the improvements of their clinical signs.
2. Early stadium of chronic pulmonary tuberculosis
Myocardial damages were frequently observed, but from what improvements observed after streptomycin treatment, the majority were considered reversible.
3. Late stadium of chronic pulmonary tuberculosis
Myocardial damages were observed in a higher frequency than that of the early stadium. In most cases, they showed no improvements by the streptomycin treatment, therefore, they were considered irreversible.
In conclusion, myocardial damages in tuberculosis are clinically divided into two types: “reversible” and “irreversible”, the latter type being increased along with the advance in lesions.

View full abstract

1. The annual tuberculosis morbidity has not changed in general both in males and females, the male morbidity always being somewhat higher than that of female. However, the morbidity of the youth has decreased while that of the children and of the old has increased on the contrary. This change in the morbidity was more manifest in males than in females.
2. The tuberculosis mortality has decreased year after year in both sexes. In the year 1952, it reduced to the half of the year 1949. In the year 1951, the mortality from tuberculosis was the top among the death causes (international classification of the main causes of death) and it reduced to the fourth in the year 1952. The mortality increased gradually in the old ages while it decreased in the younger ages and especially in the youth. This change in the mortality was more distinct in males than in females and it was higher in the former than the latter.
3. In regard to the termination of tuberculosis patients, those who left the sanatoriums or the hospitals because of the complete or the moderate restoration, increased year after year, on the contrary, those who remained unchanged, became worse or died, decreased. The mortality reduced to half of the past years.
4. As for the tuberculin test, there was an increase of approximately 15% or more positive people in the recent 4 years. The positive rate has increased gradually in the younger age group especially in babies and children perhaps because of the BCG vaccination. On the contrary, the positive people decreased in the declined ages.
5. The number of the tuberculosis patients discovered by the mass examination increased a little in the ages from 5 to 24 years and decreased in the other ages, especially in babies and in the declined ages. The rate of the discovery of tuberculosis patients by the examination, however, slightly increased in the year 1949 from the year 1952.

View full abstract

THE present experiment was carried out on the 29 inpatients under occupational therapy in the National Tokyo Sanatorium whose sputa were found negative or occasionally positive for tubercle bacilli by culture. Their work load constitutes of walking at normal pace, desk-working and ploughing. Upon surveying the influence of such work load upon the discharge of the bacilli by the daily quantitative culture of their sputa following findings were obtained:
1. The cases whose discharge of the bacilli had been relatively large even at rest, the discharge was increased by either one of the above mentioned work load and did not easily decrease by rest.
2. Some of the cases whose discharge of the bacilli had been found to be extremely slight or negative did not show the increase of the bacilli by walking nor by desk-working, but increased by ploughing. Even this increase, however, was rapidly improved or became negative by rest.
3. The only increase in the discharge of the bacilli by ploughing is considered to be due to the local and mechanical action placed on the lungs.

View full abstract

IN order to know the relationship between the characters and the autonomic nerve functions of pulmonary tuberculosis patients, Miyake's, Awaji's and Wengei's tests were made on 150 pulmonary tuberculosis patients and on 20 normal individuals to serve as controls.
The findings of those tests revealed that the incidence rate of abnormal characters was much higher in the group of pulmonary tuberculosis patients than in the group of normal individuals.
When the above finding was viewed from the standpoint of autonomic nerve functions, those individuals with abnormal character and those who developed highly different character after onset of tuberculosis infection were mostly found among the sympathetic nerve dominant individuals.
When viewed from the standpoint of character features, lack of will, easily variable mood and hypersensibility were mostly found among the sympathetic nerve dominant individuals and disability was found mostly among the parasympathetic nerve dominant, autonomic nerve tension type and normal individuals.
No significant relationship was observed between the findings of tropism test and the autonomic nerve functions.

View full abstract