BY DR. OSCAR KATZ. 571 



Experiments on Ferrets.* 



In the following is given the enumeration of experiments 

 with chicken-cholera microbes on ferrets. Certain carnivorous 

 animals, as dogs and cats, are already sufficiently known to be 

 insusceptible to these microbes, and from the results obtained with 

 regard to ferrets, it may reasonably be inferred that the latter are 

 equally inaccessible to them. 



1888. 

 (a) Inoculation. 



(i) With culture. 



September 10th, 11.30 a.m. 

 Ttwo ferrets (one male, one female) were inoculated with | com. of 

 a virulent broth-culture of the microbe of chicken-cholera, obtained 

 directly from blood of a rabbit that had died of " chicken-cholera." 



Control : — A control-rabbit was found dead at 7.50 p.m. the same day 

 [i.e., about 8^ hours after being inoculated). P.M., Positive. 



Results : 



On being fed, at 9 a.m. on the 11th September, the two ferrets 

 appeared dull and feverish. Both drank water freely before touch- 

 ing the meat or porridge and milk given to them, and when they 

 took up the pieces of meat, did not tear at them ravenously, as was 

 their wont before. So they remained for some time. The seat of 

 inoculation showed some special reaction, which in one (the female) 

 subsided gradually, while the condition of the other (male) became 

 worse and worse, till it succumbed on the 18th September. 



P.M.— Extensive gangrene round the seat of inoculation; organs 

 abnormal ; absence of any micro-organisms in preparations from 

 heart-blood and spleen. 



* The ferrets referred to in these experiments were sent to the Rabbit 

 Commission by the Government of New Zealand, and were received at Rodd 

 Island on the 31st August. Ferrets are here and there in the Australasian 

 Colonies employed for the destruction of rabbits. 



