INTESTINAL OR COLON-TYPHOID GROUP 271 



as has been noted above, the various strains agglutinate differently, 

 and blood from a typhoid or a paratyphoid patient may show a 

 marked capacity to agglutinate B. enteritidis. 



Transmission and Prophylaxis. Probably a large proportion 

 of the cases of so-called ptomain-poisoning is due to infection with 

 Bacillus enteritidis and to its toxic products of metabolism. Such 

 infection undoubtedly occurs frequently enough to justify rigor- 

 ous measures for its prevention. Meat or milk from animals 

 showing severe gastro-intestinal disturbances should never be 

 used, as the infection in the human has in several well-authenti- 

 cated instances been traced directly to such practices. Probably 

 most cases of meat-poisoning originate from use of flesh of diseased 

 animals, but the possibility of infection with the organism after the 

 animal has been slaughtered should not be ignored. Experiments 

 have shown that when fresh meat is inoculated upon the surface 

 with a culture of B. enteritidis, the organism rapidly penetrates 

 the tissues, even at low temperatures. Such infection might 

 easily occur in unsanitary abattoirs, through flies and careless 

 handling. 



It should be noted that certain types of the paratyphoid 

 bacillus are very similar to this form, if not identical with it, and 

 doubtless are the cause of meat-poisoning as well. 



Bacillus choleras suis 



Synonyms. Bacillus suipestifer; B. salmoni; Salmonella. 



Salmon and Smith, in 1885, described what is known as the 

 Bacillus cholera suis as the cause of the disease called by them 

 swine plague. In the following year Smith discovered another 

 organism associated with a different disease of swine. This led to 

 a revision of terminology, w r hich has since come into common use, 

 and the organism first described is now known as the hog-cholera 

 bacillus. Smith recovered this organism from the spleens of 

 about 500 hogs affected with hog-cholera. It was quite generally 

 accepted as the cause of the disease, until de Schweinitz and Dorset 

 reported an outbreak of hog-cholera in which the B. cholera suis 

 was not the primary cause. This was shown by the transmission 

 of the disease by blood filtered through fine-grained porcelain 

 bougies, a procedure which removed the bacillus completely, as 



