416 EDWIN S. GOOD AND WALLACE V. SMITH 



In the lai^e outbreak investigated by the writers early this year, 

 some twenty sows aborted in rather quick succession. On \dsit- 

 ing the place, it was found that one sow had aborted the night 

 before, and two of the fetuses together with the attached after- 

 birth were brought to the laboratory for examination. The 

 fetuses were fairly well developed, although not far enough along 

 to have any hair. On one of the afterbirths there were noted 

 numerous brownish, villus-like projections ranging in size from 

 1 to 3 mm. in diameter. They were so numerous in some places 

 as to become confluent. On opening these, a dark serous fluid 

 was noted. In our investigations upon the etiology of infectious 

 abortion of animals, streak dilutions on agar or agar serum are 

 always made and incubated under aerobic, Nowak, and anaerobic 

 conditions. In this instance, streak dilutions were made on a 

 series of agar plates, the agar being slightly alkaUne to phenol- 

 phthalein, with material from the nodules on the afterbirth, from 

 bits of the afterbirth from both pigs, and from the contents of 

 the umbilicus, heart, liver, stomach and kidney of each fetus. 

 From appearances, the kidneys of the pigs were very much 

 enlarged and gorged with blood. As these pigs had lain on straw 

 for a few hours, several of the plates showed on incubation in 

 the air the growth of a considerable number of contaminating 

 organisms, such as B. coli, B. subtilis, etc. This, of course is 

 what would be expected on plating the afterbirth as the material 

 had lain on straw for several hours before being secured by us. 

 Cultures from the internal organs of the fetuses, however, were 

 nearly sterile. The clear places on the plates were marked with 

 India ink, after which they were subjected to the cultural method 

 of Nowak. 1 The material was incubated at 37°C. for four days 

 and removed from the jars. On casual examination of the petri 

 dishes, we were led to beheve that they contained nothing but the 

 growth of bacteria usually encountered in plating material which 

 had lain on the ground for some hours. Upon examining one 

 of the plates carefully with a Coddington lens, however, there 

 were noted in some of the clear spaces of the dishes a few very 



1 E. S. Good, Investigations of the Etiology of Infections Abortion of Cows 

 and Mares, Bull. No. 165, Ky. Agri. Exper. Sta., 1912, p. 249. 



