ANAEROBIC COCCI IN THE VAGINA OF NATIVE WOMEN IN BRITISH NORTH BORNEO

IN a previous paper (Polunin, 1958) the suggestion was made that de-population amongst the Muruts, a tribe living in the interior of British North Borneo, was largely due to failure to bear children, it having been found that as many as 40 per cent of Murut women who had ever been married had not had a living child. The explanation advanced for this sterility was that it was largely due to gynaecological abnormalities such as thickening or distension of the Fallopian tubes of such a character as to prevent conception by blocking their lumen, or alternatively, retroversion of the uterus due to adhesions which would lead to abortion if conception were to occur. Examination of a series of 27 Murut women complaining of infertility showed that no less than 20 (74 per cent) had lesions of this description and somewhat similar findings were obtained in a study of another 41 women from neighbouring groups where sterility was a serious problem. It is probable that these lesions are not the sequelae of gonorrhoea but that they result from post-abortal or post-partum infection. Little is still known of the organisms likely to cause pathological changes of this description following abortion, but the more severe forms of post-partum infection are generally due to either Streptococcus pyogenes or anaerobic cocci (Schwartz and Dieckmann, 1927 ; Schottmuller, 1928; Colebrook, 1930; Douglas and Health, University of Malaya in Singapore