390 ON THE RELATIONS OF MICRO-ORGANISMS TO DISEASE 
inflammation having all the clinical characters of erysipelas ; and, on examining 
stained sections of the part, he discovered another exquisitely delicate bacillus 
resembling the micrococcus of the gangrene in being local in its development, 
while its exact correspondence in extent with that of the disease led fairly to the 
conclusion that it constituted the materies morbi.* 
I will next refer to a disease occasioned by a micro-organism discovered 
by the eminent pathologist, Professor Toussaint, of Toulouse, whom I am proud 
to see present in this Section to-day. This disease has been somewhat inappro- 
priately termed Choléva des poules, or fowl-cholera, for it is not attended with 
diarrhoea or any other of the symptoms of cholera; but, as it happened to be 
extremely destructive among the poultry-yards of Paris at the same time that 
an epidemic of cholera was raging in the city, the disorder which prevailed 
among the fowls was also given the name of cholera. The lesions by which 
it is chiefly characterized are great swelling of the chains of lymphatic glands 
in the vicinity of the trachea, pericarditis accompanied with great effusion, 
and congestion, and it may be ulceration, of the mucous membrane of the 
duodenum. It is a blood disease, and highly infectious. If some of the blood 
of a chicken that has died of it be mixed with the oats with which healthy 
chickens are fed, a considerable proportion, perhaps four out of six, are affected 
and die; and similar results are produced by mixing the intestinal excreta of 
diseased fowls with the food. It is an interesting question how the virus thus 
administered enters the circulation. The invariable affection of the lymphatic 
glands of the throat suggests to M. Toussaint the idea that some accidental 
abrasion of the epithelium in the mouth or pharynx is probably the channel ; 
and this view is confirmed by the fact that a similar affection of the lymphatic 
glands, together with other symptoms of the disease, is produced by inoculating 
the chicken in the mouth ; and further, by the circumstance that such chickens 
as fail to take the disease when fed with the infected food are lable to it when 
inoculated, implying that it was merely some accidental circumstance which 
secured their previous immunity. This disease has been made the subject of 
special investigation by M. Pasteur. He found that the micro-organism could 
be readily cultivated outside the body of the fowl. It was, indeed, somewhat 
particular as regards the fluid in which it would grow; thus yeast-water, in 
which the Bacillus anthracis grows readily, proved an unsuitable medium for 
this organism, but it grew luxuriantly in chicken broth, and, indeed, in infusion 
of other kinds of meat; but chicken broth proved peculiarly convenient for 
the purpose. M. Pasteur has been so kind as to send me some tubes in which 
1 See Untersuchungen tiber die Astiologie der Wundinfectionskvankheiten, von Dr. Robert Koch 
Leipzig, 1878. A translation of this work has been issued by the Sydenham Society. 
