498 THE BACTERIOPHAGE AND ITS BEHAVIOR 



The buffalo is par excellence the beast of burden in the cultivation of 

 rice-fields; it replaces the ox in all southern Asia and in the islands of 

 the Sunda Straits. It is utilized in certain regions of Italy, in Egypt, 

 in Hungary, and in the Balkans. Wherever the buffalo lives there also 

 will be found barbone, the most terrible, without doubt, of all the con- 

 tagious diseases. The reports indicate a mortality of from 70 to 95 

 per cent. I was present during an epizootic which raged in June, 1920, 

 in the Province of Bac Lieu (Cochin-China) where among the thirty 

 thousand buffaloes of the region ten thousand died, and I did not have 

 an opportunity to observe a single animal which recovered. Recovery 

 may occur, but it is certainly rare, and the mortality in Cochin-China 

 is certainly above 99 per cent of the animals affected. 



The average duration of the evolution of the disease is but eighteen 

 to twenty-four hours; rarely thirty-six. Death sometimes takes place 

 without precursory symptoms. An animal yoked to a plow stops, 

 remains motionless for a few moments with a haggard aspect and then 

 falls as though struck by lightning. In typical cases, which can be 

 reproduced in a perfect manner in experimental infection, the animal 

 appears dejected, the eyes fixed, the head lowered. The temperature 

 rapidly mounts to 41.5 to 42.5°C., the respiration, at first accelerated, 

 becomes slowed and then dyspneic, the inspirations less and less fre- 

 quent. The animal shows meteorism; it lies flat on the ground in com- 

 plete lateral decubitus usually a short time before death which is pre- 

 ceded by cramps and at times convulsions. 



Often tumefaction is to be observed, appearing usually in the region 

 of the throat and extending back to the shoulder. The engorgement is 

 produced by a gelatinous exudate of a yellow color within the connective 

 tissue. At times the tumefaction appears in another part of the body, 

 or it may be entirely lacking. This tumefaction, as shown in experi- 

 mental infection, marks the portal of entrance of the pathogenic bacteria. 

 Infection usually occurs by way of the digestive tract and the virus 

 most frequently penetrates the tissues through some portion of the 

 nasopharynx. A tumefaction on another part of the body — thigh, 

 abdomen, rump — indicates a reinfection by the penetration of the virus 

 through an excoriation. Examination of cadavers shows that the 

 absence of tumefaction indicates an infection by way of the stomach and 

 intestine. 



Bovines and the buffalo are equally susceptible, as was noted a long 

 time ago by Piot in Egypt. The statistics of Indo-China indicate, it 

 is true, that the mortality from barbone is but slight for cattle, but this 



