Inclusion bodies in nongonococcal urethritis; also skin lesions with inclusions.

In a recent statistical survey of 2,756 cases of non-gonococcal urethritis examined at the Urological Clinic of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris (Hopital Cochin), inclusion bodies were found in 84, i.e., an average of about 3 per cent. In patients suffering from the urethro-conjunctivo-synovial syndrome, we have found, as previously reported by Harkness (1945), inclusion bodies in scrapings from the urethra and skin lesions. We have always been particularly careful in the identification of inclusion bodies, and only record their presence when there are distinct nucleus and cell boundaries, elementary bodies stained a definite violet-purple with Giemsa, granules of regular size, clearly delimited crescentshaped grouping, etc. (Figs 1 and 2). To confirm a viral aetiology, it is necessary, as Willcox, Howard, and Findlay (1954) remarked, to have the confirmation ofserological tests (complement deviation of the psittacosis, ornithosis group), skin tests (obtained with lymphogranuloma venereum, psittacosis, trachoma antigen group), and cultures with transmission to animals in addition to finding inclusion bodies similar to those in the accepted virus diseases. Observing these criteria, we have found in certain cases that the inclusion bodies present in epithelial cells from the urethra have all the characteristics of those described in other virus diseases.