With regard to the bacillary type, at first both organisms were considered to be identical, and the name bacillus dysenteriae was given to them; but later it was shown that these bacilli are different, both in regard to their cultural characteristics and also in that one (Shiga) gives out a soluble toxin, whilst the other has so far resisted all efforts to discover it.
In those cases due to Shiga's bacillus the ideal treatment has been put at our disposal by the preparation of a specific antitoxin; this has been given a trial in several grave epidemics of late, and may be said to be the most satisfactory treatment and offer the greatest hope of recovery.
Researchers have developed a plant-based vaccine against bacterial Shiga toxin, and show that it is highly protective in mice.
(For the pathology see Digestive Organs.) Recently considerable advance has been made in our knowledge of dysentery, and it appears that there are two distinct types of the disease: (1) amoebic dysentery, which is due to the presence of the amoeba histolytica (of Schaudinn) in the intestine; (2) bacillary dysentery, which has as causative agent two separate bacteria, (a) that discovered by Shiga in Japan, (b) that discovered by Flexner in the Philippine Islands.
(July 1905); Ford in Journal of Tropical Medicine (July 15, 1904); Korentchewsky in Bulletin de l'Institut Pasteur (February 1905); Shiga: Osler and M'Crae's System of Medicine, vol.