Observations of the blood and the bone marrow in murine typhus and of the influences of chemotherapy were performed on the patients who were admitted to our hospital since the winter of 1947. They were classified into three groups; nonspecific therapy group of 55 patients, paraaminobenzoic acid group of 25, and antibiotic groups of 43 (that is, AM group 10, TM group 11, CM group 11, IT group 7 and other 4). The subsidence of fever was most rapid in the antibiotic groups, especially in the AM group.
No significant difference was noted among these three groups as to the number of erythrocytes or the level of hemoglobin concentration. Thrombocytes decreased during the febrile stage, but increased promptly thereafter, the increase in defervescence being most rapid in the antibiotic groups AM and TM. Megacaryocytes also increased with the fall of fever.
Bone marrow cells decreased in the febrile period, and statistically a negative correlation was found between the temperature and the number of bone marrow cells. Erythrocytes in the peripheral blood reached their maximum counts at the end of the second week, decreasing thereafter gradually to their normal values.
During the febrile stage neutrophil leucocytes increased in all groups but the so-called neutrophil cell reaction was slightest in the antibiotic groups, so that the author assumed that the antibiotics may control the neutrophil cell reaction when they are applied early. Neutrophils in the bone marrow, especially the younger forms such as metamyelocytes, myelocytes, promyelocytes, were above the normal counts in fever, but stab and segment cells were below normal, giving the impression that they were actively mobilized into peripheral blood.
Lymphocytes increased markedly in defervescence and showed a remarkable negative correlation to fever. Monocytes reached their maximum counts at the end of the second week, and plasma cells on the 12th day of illness.
The titers of the Weil-Felix reaction and the complement fixation reaction and the levels of gamma-globulin were all elevated parallel to the increase of peripheral lymphocyte counts in defervescence, whereas plasma cells in peripheral blood as well as in the bone marrow, showed a fluctuation reverse to that of the above-mentioned quantities.
Note: AM Aureomycin
TM Terramycin
CM Chloromycetin
IT Ilotycin