164 REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL IISTDUSTRY. 



The internal organs are free from bacteria. But from the contents 

 of the intestine and the ulcers a motile bacillus was obtained. Mice 

 are killed in ten days after subcutaneous inoculation with cultures 

 of this organism. Of ten adult mice fed with cultures two died in 

 fifteen days. Of ten young mice all died when fed, the first in thirty 

 hours ; the others in fifteen to twenty-three days. Babbits are but 

 slightly susceptible. A young guinea-pig fed with cultures died 

 twenty -two days later. The intestine showed characteristic ulcers. 



Dr. Rietsch very kindly sent to the Bureau a culture of the germ 

 which he found. It was compared with the American hog cholera 

 germ and the following characters determined: 



The motile bacilli of the same form as hog cholera bacilli, but larger, 

 grow far more abundantly and rapidly in beef infusion. A thin 

 membrane and a copious deposit are produced in a few days, and the 

 liquid becomes very turbid. On gelatine the colonies diner slightly 

 from those of hog cholera. The surface colonies spread in thin 

 iridescent patches from 2 to 5 millimeters in diameter. In tube 

 cultures the isolated deep colonies grow to about one-third milli- 

 meter in diameter. On the surface the growth is rapid and spreads 

 over the greater part of that which is available. The patch pro- 

 duced is whitish, uniform in thickness, very irregular in outline, 

 inclosing round spaces of uncovered gelatine. In the bottom of the 

 tube a few air bubbles appear. On potato the growth forms a glis- 

 tening, pale yellow patch at the ordinary temperature. 



Thus they resemble the Swedish germs very closely, differing by 

 so much from hog cholera bacilli. A rabbit and two mice inoculated 

 with the Marseilles germ remained well. Equally so a pig fed with 400 

 cubic centimeters (four-fifths pint) of a beef -infusion peptone culture. 



So far as our examination of the Swedish and Marseilles cultures has 

 gone, it has shown them identical both as regards their positive and 

 negative characters. They differ from hog cholera bacteria enough 

 to constitute at least a variety. But the investigations of French 

 savants of this Marseilles epizootic differ somewhat as to the cause. 



Cornil and Chantemesse * described a disease discovered among 

 swine in the vicinity of Paris which they consider identical with the 

 German Schweineseuche and our swine plague. Subsequent experi- 

 ments f to determine the biological properties of the bacteria causing 

 the disease show that they are not dealing with the true swine plague 

 germ (certainly not as we have observed it in this country), but with 

 one resembling more nearly hog cholera. Their researches concern- 

 ing vaccination are reported to have been successful on rabbits and 

 guinea pigs, but since that time nothing has been published concern- 

 ing experiments on pigs. 



While Rietsch and Jobert J come to the conclusion that the Mar- 

 seilles disease resembles hog cholera closely, Cornil and Chantemesse 

 regard it identical with swine plague, although the germ they de- 

 scribe is not identical with the swine plague germ, as studied in Ger- 

 many and in the United States. 



* Compt. Rend. Acad. Sciences, 1887, cv, p. 1381. 



fL. c., 1888., cvi, p. 612. 



1L. c.,p. 1096. 



gin a recent review of the reports of the Bureau of Animal Industry by Duclaux 

 (Annales de 1'Institut Pasteur, July, 1888) the reviewer regards this disease as iden- 

 tical with hog cholera, and states that Cornil and Chantemesse had at first over- 

 looked the motility of the germ they were studying, a rather unpardonable bit of 

 carelessness. 



