A Treatise on the Transformation of the Intestinal Flora with Special Reference to the Implantation of Bacillus acidophilus

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921. First edition.

SCARCE LANDMARK STUDY OF FECAL TRANSPLANTS 80 YEARS BEFORE THE INTRODUCTION OF "MICROBIOME".

9 1/4 inches tall hardcover, viii, 135 pages, original green cloth boards, many charts and tables throughout, one folding, 8 plates (3 color). Very good in custom archival mylar cover. The present volume is based on investigations conducted at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University and presented in lectures delivered during the autumn of 1920 by the senior author, on the Silliman Foundation. PREFACE: "Fifty years have passed since Pasteur and Koch, the founders of modern bacteriology, made their first contributions to this new field of scientific study. No phase of the subject has been given more attention by investigators than the bacteriology of the digestive tract. However, success in these endeavors has been limited, with few exceptions, to the discovery of microorganisms which are manifestly disease-producing and which exert their baneful influence in comparatively short periods of time, as for example the microbial agents causing typhoid fever and epidemic dysentery. The more subtle bacterial processes which take place in the intestine, and the laws which govern the preponderance of one type of bacteria over another, have as yet been but little understood. The authors have aimed to present here in as direct a manner as possible the results of an extended series of observations on: (1) the relation of diet to the character of the intestinal bacterial flora, and (2) the possibility of implanting bacteria of known physiological properties in place of those which ordinarily hold sway after early infancy." CONTENTS: I. Historical review; II. Feeding and implantation experiments with white rats; III. Feeding and implantation experiments with human subjects; IV. A full account of the preparation of Bacillus acidophilus milk for human consumption, and of its known properties; V. Methods employed in the routine examination of feces; VI. General discussion and summary.

LEO FREDERIC RETTGER (1874-1954) earned his doctorate in physiology from Yale University, but early in his career pursued bacteriology, which was then a new science. He was the author of the first scientific article published in the Journal of Bacteriology, and a member of the editorial board from 1916 to 1948. He was an admired mentor, and his graduate students worked with him rather than under him, and received full credit for work performed in his laboratory. The first description of fecal microbiome transplant was published in 1958 by Ben Eiseman and colleagues,who treated four critically ill patients with fulminant pseudomembranous colitis (before C. difficile was the known cause) using fecal enemas, which resulted in a rapid return to health. The term "microbiome" was coined by Joshua Lederberg in 2001, and has now become a household word, with over 14,000 published papers to date.