"Trachoma bodies" possibly the aetiologic factor of trachoma

Abstract

In April, 1907, Halberstadter and Prowazek 1 described some bodies which they had found in epithelial cells taken from trachomatous conjunctivae and which, they maintained, were the etiologic factor of trachoma. A few weeks later Greeff, 2 Frosch and Clausen, 3 working together, published papers describing the same bodies and ascribing the same importance to them. As was to be expected, this discovery and the claims of the discoverers have been the subject of much attention and discussion; just now much is being published on the subject in the German journals. Other investigators have taken up the work, and in suitable cases are confirming it; that is, in acute untreated trachoma they are finding these bodies almost constantly. In the later stages of the disease the bodies are not found in the epithelial cells. Two of the most recent articles on this subject are by Stargardt 4 and Herford, 5 respectively. Supporting the idea