REPORT

OF THE

BACTERIOLOGICAL LABORATORY

FOR THE

QUARTER ENDING DEC. 31, 1898.

GENERAL SYNOPSIS OF THE WORK DONE DURING THE YEAR 1898.

In the present report it seemed desirable to give not only the list of examinations made as a routine for the past quarter and those in the nature of special researches, but to compare the year's work with that done during the years 1896 and 1897. Though there is an increase in the amount of work done as shown by the numbers of examinations made, these numbers cannot be taken as an accurate index, since routine examinations, although requiring some time, are not nearly so wasteful of it as are sundry examinations, the results of which may be extremely unsatisfactory. In an estimation of what has been accomplished during the past year, certain happenings must not be lost sight of, as their influence upon the apparent work has been marked. Amongst these may be mentioned: (a) The cessation by this laboratory of those routine examinations of specimens upon the results of which the health board of Minneapolis might determine the necessity for imposition or abandonment of quarantine.

The work of examining blood for the typhoid reaction and sundry investigations of interesting or obscure cases, such as cerebro-spinal meningitis, etc., have been, however, continued, since they had no bearing upon public health under the present regulations of the city and constituted work of a decided research character.

(b) The outbreak of typhoid fever at Camp Ramsey in the Fifteenth Regiment, Minn., U. S. V., afforded a most excellent opportunity of fairly testing the value of the blood reaction, of observing the methods of infection by B. typhi abdominalis, and of studying camp sanitation generally.

The huge number of cases occurring simultaneously and causing so much work to the regimental physician; the inability to obtain reliable histories as to the possibilities of infection accorded the soldiers where they had so recently come together and were allowed to visit freely the neighboring cities; and the scattering of the cases owing to the lack of camp hospital facilities,-prevented anything like the keeping of systematic records of clinical data by the different physicians through whose hands the cases passed, and it has been impossible to obtain even that data which was collected at the time. This has made the large amount of work done by the laboratory of very much less value.

The small size of the laboratory force and the impoverished condition of the board rendered it impossible to cope with the work at all from the point of view of a proper bacteriological examination of the excreta of these 300 patients for comparison with the results of the blood reaction, and of a thorough systematic investigation of all the materials through which the infection might have been transmitted.

The request of the medical board at Washington for a full report upon the epidemic cannot be met in such a fashion as is becoming to this board, for which, though it is to its discredit, it cannot be blamed by those in a position to know.

(c) The investigation of the condition of affairs at the State Public School at Owatonna, which is at once a matter of the greatest importance to the inmates of the school and the state at large, and one which affords an almost unique opportunity for the study of diphtheria and the means for its detection and eradication.

Constant efforts on the part of the authorities of the school based upon data afforded by bacteriological examination in this laboratory for the past two and a half years hav ing failed to rid the school of the infection, it had been de cided by this board to send some one from the laboratory to collaborate with the authorities at Owatonna. This was found to be impossible, owing to the illness of the director of

the laboratory, until the quarter just passed, when it was begun.

A full account of it is given later in this report.

SYNOPSIS OF EXAMINATIONS FOR 1898 COMPARED WITH THOSE OF 1897

The work has grown so enormously that it is getting beyond the power of the present staff to cope with it, and while a great deal has been and is being accomplished along the lines of routine work, and some few things have been done which may be considered of some value scientifically, it too often happens that good opportunities for investigation are allowed to let slip; and where much labor has been expended in beginning and continuing investigations to a point sufficient for diagnosis, etc., they have not been completed sufficiently to be worthy of record as scientific work and likely to bring the greatest possible credit to this state.

The work of organization of the laboratory from total lack of definition of its functions at first in the minds of the board and laboratory staff, and still persisting in the minds of the people throughout the state, has prevented the acquirement of the proper balance between routine and research work. This was probably

*Error in quarterly report.

**Sundry examinations include disinfection experiments; investigation of obscure diseases of animals and men, examining such materials as foods and flies as carriers of infection, as at Camp Ramsey, and of earth, milk, etc., as sources of diphtheria bacilli at Owatonna.