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Fifty patients, eventually diagnosed as having brucellosis, were studied prospectively for comparison of a simple culture of bone marrow aspirate from the iliac crest (0.5-1.0 ml) with two cultures of blood (5-10 ml) taken 30-60 min apart and with a tube-agglutination test. Cultures of bone marrow and blood were positive in 92% and 70% of the patients, respectively (P less than .001). Bacteria multiplied significantly faster in bone marrow cultures (4.32 vs. 6.65 days; P less than .001). All isolates were identified as Brucella melitensis biotype 1. Serological diagnosis was established in 86% of the patients. The efficacy of cultures of blood decreased significantly with chronic and subacute forms of infection, whereas that of bone marrow culture decreased only in chronic forms. Prior use of antibiotics reduced the positivity of cultures of blood but did not affect bone marrow culture. Bone marrow culture is recommended for patients with fever of unknown origin, negative serology, and unexplained articular or hematologic involvement, and patients in whom brucellosis is suspected.

A framework is developed for constructing a large class of discrete generation, continuous space models of evolving single species populations and finding their bifurcating patterned spatial distributions. Our models involve, in separate stages, the spatial redistribution (through movement laws) and local regulation of the population; and the fundamental properties of these events in a homogeneous environment are found. Emphasis is placed on the interaction of migrating individuals with the existing population through conspecific attraction (or repulsion), as well as on random dispersion. The nature of the competition of these two effects in a linearized scenario is clarified. The bifurcation of stationary spatially patterned population distributions is studied, with special attention given to the role played by that competition.

Brucellosis may involve the eye and can lead to serious complications. In patients with brucellosis, early ophthalmologic evaluation can lead to prompt treatment and might prevent blindness from severe ocular damage.

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