288 NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



Bacteria in Malignant Pustule. — The fatal malady known 

 by this name amongst ourselves, and when it occdrs in cattle 

 as ** the Blood," to which the French give the name of 

 Charbon, and the Germans that of Milzbrand, though 

 happily rare in England, does occur occasionally amongst 

 cowkeepers, butchers, and others who have to do with cattle 

 or horses ; and on this account the careful description of two 

 such cases, given by Dr. B. Frankel and Dr. J. Orth, in the 

 * Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift' for June 1st and 8th, 

 1874, deserves attention. 



Both patients were admitted into the Augusta Hospital at 

 Berlin, the second being a sick-warder and post-moi'tem 

 room assistant in that institution. Both cases were fatal. 

 At the post-mortem examination of the first the following 

 appearances were found : 



The whole of the cervical connective tissue was infiltrated 

 with reddish serum. This sanguineous infiltratitin, following 

 the course of the trachea, extended into the mediastinum, 

 along the bronchi, and over the pericardium. Everywhere, 

 along with this cedema, the lymphatic glands were enlarged, 

 some to the size of walnuts, and so swollen with dark blood 

 as to strongly resemble blood-clots. The spleen was much 

 enlarged, and extremely soft. The whole mucous membrane 

 of the stomach was greatly swollen, pulpy, and reddened. 

 In five or six large spots there was especial svvelling, partly 

 due to extravasated blood, partly to local gangrene, with a 

 greenish -yellow tint. This appeared, not only on the sur- 

 face, but on section. Professor Virchow pronounced the 

 case to be one of malignant pustule directly he saw this 

 stomach. The microscope confirmed this, for not only on 

 the surface of these greenish-yellow spots, but also in the 

 parenchyma of the gastric walls, there were found enormous 

 quantities of the parasitic elements generally known by 

 Davaine's name of Bacteridia. For the most part these 

 appeared as masses of felted, but not branching, threads, 

 which were seen, at the edges of the groups, to be comi)osed 

 of a number of little rod- like bodies of equal length. There 

 Avere also masses, though less numerous, composed of groups 

 of equal-sized granules (micrococci). It was now clear that 

 the case was one of the so-called mycosis intestinalis, a 

 special form of the pest known as Milzbrand, or spleen- 

 gangrene, or malignant pustule; and the marked swelhug 

 and hsemorrhagic appearances of the mesenteric and retro- 

 peritoneal lymphatic glands, the softened spleen, sanguineous 

 cedema of the connective tissue of the abdominal cavity, 

 ascites, &c., described by Dr. Frankel, perfectly agreed with 



