Panophthalmitis due to an Organism of the Bacillus Subtilis Group

Abstract

THE first recorded series of cases of panophthalmitis due to Bacillus subtilis was that of Poplawska (1891), who described eight cases which followed perforating injuries, and 10 years later Romer (1901) described a case of post-operative infection. Reviewing the ocular infections due to these organisms, Fran9ois (1934) collected forty cases from the literature; other cases have been reported by Greenspon (1918), Motolese (1936), and Reese and Khorazo (1943). In all these cases the organism was described as Bacillus subtilis, probably owing to the confusion that existed in the classifica- tion of this group of organisms, and no further identification was attempted. Wilson and Miles (1946) include all the pathogenic strains of this group, other than Bacillus anthracis, under the name of pseudo-anthrax bacilli or Bacillus anthracoides: the one exception to this classification is the Bacillus subtilis which according to them may be pathogenic in the eye but non- pathogenic in extra-ocular tissues and in laboratory animals. More recently Bergey (1948) has emphasized the confusion that exists in this group and has proposed a more rational basis for the identification of individual species. Chu (1949) suggested that many of the organisms which gave rise to infections were strains of Bacillus cereus and that the toxin which this organism produced might be responsible for their pathogenicity.