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Volume 301:897-900 October 25, 1979 Number 17 Next

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Abstract

A 49-year-old splenectomized man had an infection from an unidentified, gram-positive, rod-shaped bacterium that adhered to the majority of his peripheral-blood erythrocytes. On transmission electron microscopy, the bacterium was seen to be extra-erythrocytic and was 0.2 micrometer wide by 1.0 to 1.7 micrometer long. It possessed a thick, granular cell wall, a trilamellar membrane external to the cell wall and prominent mesosomes. Attempts to cultivate the organism in vitro or to duplicate the patient's disease in splenectomized animals were unsuccessful. The patient's response suggested that the bacterium was susceptible to cell-wall-active antibiotics and to chloramphenicol but not to tetracycline. This bacterium may be the cause of other chronic, fever-producing, multisystem diseases of unknown origin.

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Lowsky, R., Archer, G. L., Fyles, G., Minden, M., Curtis, J., Messner, H., Atkins, H., Patterson, B., Willey, B. M., McGeer, A. (1994). Diagnosis of Whipple's Disease by Molecular Analysis of Peripheral Blood. NEJM 331: 1343-1346 [Full Text]