Bacteriology: New Venereal Disease

Spontaneous abortion in sheep and beef cattle seems an odd subject for study by a New York City pediatrician. But Dr. Alvin N. Eden of Wyckoff Heights Hospital has been studying it, and he thinks that his colleagues ought to do the same. The wriggly microbe, Vibrio fetus, which is one of the most common causes of animal abortions, he reports in the Journal of Pediatrics, is probably responsible for a similar, and hitherto generally unrecognized, venereal disease in man.

Grazing animals apparently pick up the infection from contaminated feed or water, after which the vibrios settle quietly in their genitalia and cause no discernible illness in adult animals. They have been detected in many seemingly healthy stud bulls and are transmitted to the female in mating. Then they attack the placenta and kill the fetal animals, causing them to be aborted.

Much the same thing may happen in humans, says Pediatrician Eden. There have been 26 confirmed Vibrio fetus infections in men. There have been only eight reported cases involving women, all associated with pregnancy. "This must be more than coincidence," says Dr. Eden. The eight pregnancies ended in two abortions, four newborn deaths, only two babies surviving. Three of the infants who died had a raging vibrio inflammation of the brain and its covering. The women, suggests Dr. Eden, were infected during coitus, and though they may have shown no sign of illness themselves, they transmitted the vibrio to the developing fetus.

It is not yet possible to say whether Vibrio fetus is rare in human beings, or a common but usually undetected cause of prematurity or spontaneous abortion. The place to look for the evidence, says Dr. Eden, is in the placenta.