BACILLUS AEROGENES CAPSULATUS 267 



animals has been observed. The cadavers show emphysematous 

 edema over various parts of the body. Hemorrhages from the nose 

 generally precede the fatal termination. Lungdren and Bergman 

 found a bacterium much like the symptomatic anthrax bacillus in the 

 edematous fluid and serous exudates of the sick and dead animals. 

 The bacillus of reindeer plague grows best aerobically; it is 1.6 to 4.8 

 micra long, 0.7 to 0.8 micron wide; motile, with flagella; it forms 

 oval spores in the centre or at one end; occurs singly, in pairs or in 

 chains and pseudofilaments, and stains with the watery anilin stains 

 and by Gram's method. It grows between 12 and 38 C. The 

 spores are very resistant, and the organism is pathogenic in experi- 

 mental inoculation to reindeer, sheep, guinea-pigs, white mice, 

 chickens, pigeons, and sparrows. 



Other gas-forming, edema-producing bacilli which have been 

 described, but which are not strictly anaerobic, are the following: 



Novy's Bacillus cedematis maligni II, Klein's Bacillus osdematis 

 sporogenes, and Sanfelice's Bacillus cedematis aerogenes. 



BACILLUS AEROGENES CAPSULATUS (WELCH), OR BACILLUS 

 EMPHYSEMATOSUS (FRAENKEL). 



This bacillus, described by Welch, Fraenkel, Nuttall, Flexner, 

 Howard, Jr., and others, is an anaerobic gas-forming sporogenous 

 microorganism, and has been found a number of times as the cause 

 of terminal infections in man. It belongs to the group of malignant 



FIG. 137 



Bacillus aerogenes cupsulatus infecting a human liver. X 1000. (Author's preparation.) 



edema and symptomatic anthrax bacilli, but has never been en- 

 countered as a cause of natural infection in animals. It has recently 

 been found by MacNeal, Latzer, and Kerr as a normal inhabitant 

 of the intestines of healthy persons, and it is probably also found in 



