I 



Immunity 377 



Grigorjeff and Ukke* have observed another interesting 

 case of typhoid fever with intestinal ulcerations, through 

 which infection by the bacillus of malignant edema took place. 

 The case was characterized by interstitial emphysema of 

 the subcutaneous tissue of the neck and breast, gas bubbles 

 in the muscles, and a transformation of the entire liver into 

 a spongy porous mass of a grayish-brown color. The spleen was 

 enlarged and soft, and contained a few gas-bubbles. Though 

 the writers consider this organism to be the bacillus of malig- 

 nant edema, the general impression one receives from the 

 description of the lesions suggests that it was Welch's Bacillus 

 aerogenes capsulatus. 



No case is reported in which healthy men have been in- 

 fected with malignant edema. 



Immunity. Cornevin found that the passage of the bacil- 

 lus through white rats diminished its virulence, and that the 

 animals of various species that recovered were immune 

 against the virulent organisms. Roux and Chamberlandf 

 found that the filtered cultures were toxic and that animals 

 could be immunized by injection with this toxic filtrate. 



GASEOUS EDEMA. 



BACILLUS AEROGENES CAPSULATUS (WELCH). 



General Characteristics. A large, stout, non-motile, non-flagel- 

 lated, sporogenous, non-chromogenic, purely anaerobic, markedly aero- 

 genie, doubtfully pathogenic bacillus, easily cultivated in artificial 

 media, readily stained by the ordinary methods and by Gram's method. 



This disease is caused by an interesting micro-organism 

 described by Welch, and subsequently studied by Welch 

 and Nuttall, { Welch and Flexner,, and others. Welch said 

 at the meeting of the Society of American Bacteriologists held 

 at Philadelphia, December 30, 1904, that he believed this or- 

 ganism to be identical with Kline's Bacillus enteritidis sporo- 

 genes, and that it belongs to the butyric acid group. It is 

 probably also identical with Bacillus phlegmone emphysema- 

 tose of Frankel.il It was first secured by Welch from the 



* " Militar-medizin. Jour.," 1898, p. 323. 

 t "Ann. de 1'Inst. Pasteur," 1887. 



f'Bull. of the Johns Hopkins Hospital," July and Aug., 1892, 

 vol. viii, No. 24. 



"Jour, of Experimental Medicine," Jan., 1896, vol. i, No. i, p. 6. 

 || "Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., Bd. xm, p. 13. 



