282 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



uf abortion in mares. It is a facultative anaerobe; broth becomes uniformly 

 turbid in about 6 hours, and a characteristic growth is obtained on agar It Is 

 Gram positive, but not equally so under all conditions, is motile, and very nolv- 

 moiThic. It possesses great vitality, a culture kept at laboratory temperature 

 having remained viable for 7 months. 



The conclusions drawn from the studies here reported are as follows- "An 

 infection of the uterus of mares which occurs as an epizootic appears in 'some 

 cases to lejul to premature birth, and in other cases to cause serious lesions in 

 toals which are carried to full term. The organism described appears to be the 

 cause of the condition. In default of proof furnished by experiment upon 

 mares, certain important points are brought forward, viz, its constant presence 

 m pure culture in all the case.s examined ; the abortion produced experimentaliv 

 by It m laboratory animals, not only with filter«l cultures, but with certain 

 products obtained from the filtrate of such cultures; the resemblance between 

 the characters displayed by the sera of animals that have aborted and those 

 shown by the sera of animals inoculated experimentally 



"The encouraging results obtained in the examination of the properties of 

 the sera indicate that it may be found possible to recognize infection in mares 

 intended for breeding and thus be of practical value. In the absence of more 

 comp e e information epizootic abortion of the cow should be considered as 

 something quite different from epizootic abortion among mares " 

 The persistence of B. abortus in the tissues of inoculated animals M 



ll^^ "-f'-u '''t ""'''"''''' '' (^^^^)' ^^'- 1' PP- 81-83). -The author reports 

 that this bacillus after injection into various laboratory animals has been recov- 

 ered from their organs in culture many weeks later, even though there were 



sect'ior '''' '''''^^^ ''^''' ""^ ^^"^ ^'^^''^ ''''^''^ "^""""^ "^^' ^^ ^^^^P^^' «^ ^° 

 -'In those species in which the bacillus may cause lesions, the animal may 

 harbor living organLsms for over a year (67 weeks) without any external signs 

 of 1 health. That these animals are not without power slowly to destroy the 

 bacillus IS suggested by the relative diminution in the number of living organ- 

 isms with the lengthening of the interval after inoculation. Whether this 

 diminution as observed in the spleen is due to their transfer to other organs or 

 to destruction can only be determined by large series of cultures " 



A note on the presence of B. abortus in cow's milk, M. Fabyan (Jour Med 

 Research, 28 (1913), No. 1, pp. 85-89). -The author collected samples of milk " 

 from 12 cows in a thoroughbred Guernsey herd that was kept for breeding the 

 milk bemg a by-product. Ten cows were chosen indiscriminately, and 2 which 

 had aborted, one at the eighth month and the other at the third'month The 

 milk from the former of the 2 which had aborted was taken one week and 

 the latter 2 weeks following the abortion. In several instances the bacteri-il 

 count was not over 1.100 per cubic centimeter, although the 2 cases of abortion- 

 gave much higher counts. 



The pre.sence of Baelllus abortus was not demonstrated in any of the samples 

 by cultural methods. It was demonstrated by inoculation experiments with 

 gumea pigs, however, that B. abortus was present in milk which came from the 

 cow aborting at the eighth month and also in the milk of a cow which had 

 calved normally 11 months previous and had been giving milk continuously up 

 to the time the sample was taken. No abortion bacillus was obtained from the 

 milk of the cow which had aborted at the third month. 



The excretion of the abortion bacillus in the milk of infected animals 

 ZwiCK and Krage (Berlin. Ticrarztl. Wchn.^chr., 29 (1913), No 3 pp U-f.s'- 

 abs. in Jour. Compar. Path, and Ther., 26 (1913), No. 1, pp'. 59,60) —In their 

 first experiment the authors were able to demonstrate culturally the presence 



