502 EEPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OP AGRICULTURE. 



Unacquainted witli the lesions of acute, fatal cases miglit infer that the 

 disease in general was a purely local one, attacking the mucous mem- 

 brane at the place of ulceration. It is highly probable also that in 

 such cases the pathogenic microbe has been eliminated, or has given 

 ■way to other sceptic microbes, which, gaining admission through the 

 intestinal ulcers, may live, if not multiply, in the bodj'. The spleen 

 v/hich furnished us quite invariably with pure cultures from tbc acute 

 cases described above, and which, according to cover-glass preparations 

 aud gelatine cultures, contained the bacterium in abundance, failed 

 in this case. Two liquid cultures, inoculated with a platinum wire, 

 plunged into the parenchyma, remained sterile. A third tube, into 

 which a small piece of the spleen tissue had been dropped, likewise re- 

 mained clear. It is evident that if even a liingle germ had been pres- 

 ent, one of the tubes would have been clouded. It is needless to add 

 that cover-glass preparations of spleen tissue were equally negative. 

 Three mice, inoculated with a bit of the same organ, were active three 

 weeks later. 



Among those cases in which swine plague was definitely made out on 

 post mortem examination may be mentioned Ino. 88, which was exposed 

 to the disease with No. 89, November 5, and died November J-G. Cover- 

 glass preparations of the spleen revealed the presence of numerous mi- 

 crobes, slightly longer than the bacterium of swine plague and without 

 the light center. Cultures in gelatine from the spleen and heart's blood 

 grew more rapidly than jnire cultures, the surface growth being espe- 

 cially vigorous. Liquid cultures from the blood, when tested by line 

 cultures, showed the characteristic growth of the bacterium of swine 

 plague; but there were, in addition to these, a few smaller colonies 

 growing like them, so few in number, however, that they were regarded 

 as retarded colonies of the same microbe, their small size excluding a 

 microscopic determination. 



On November 27 a mouse, which had been inoculated with a bit of 

 spleen from this pig November 16, was found dead. It had been slightly 

 ill since the inoculation. The eyes were closed ; the amount of secre- 

 tion very slight. The glands of the groin enlarged, serously infiltrated. 

 The acini of the liver were pale and bloodless, its substance very soft. 

 Spleen enormously enlarged, reddish, mottled. Kidney showed some 

 whitish patches, half as large as a pin's head ; on section the medul- 

 lary portion was deeply congested and well marked off from the paler, 

 cortical portion. Both liver and spleen very soft aud friable. Lungs 

 oedematous, but float in water. They presented on the surface impres- 

 sions of the ribs and very minute interlacing, red lines, as of injected 

 vessels. Cover-glass preparations of the spleen, liver, kidneys, lungs, 

 and blood from the heart all contained the oval bacterium of swine 

 plague in profusion, the paler center well marked in all preparations. 

 The culture in gelatine from the spleen presented innumerable minute 

 colonies in the track of the i)latiuum wire. The liquid cultures from 

 the spleen and heart's blood both contained an oval, motile bacteria uj. 

 The cultures were opalescent, without surface membrane. Both found 

 ])ure when tested by line cultures on gelatine. 



On December 2 another mouse, which had been inoculated with the 

 one just described, and kept in the same jar, was killed with chloroform. 

 The organs presented the same appearance as the one just described, 

 the spleen also of enormous size. Strange to say, no bacteria were founa 

 in any of the internal organs, but a liquid culture of the blood con- 

 tained the motile bacterium and was pure, as determined by line cult- 

 ures. This animal had been inoculated sixteen days before. The bac- 



