298 BACTERIA IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



" After this relapse, there was again apparent recov- 

 ery, and then a second relapse ; in some cases there 

 were as many as six relapses occurring regularly every 

 second day. In nearly all the cases, recovery was slow ; 

 and, in some, abscesses formed near the angle of the 

 jaw, and in the region of the jaw. In three cases 

 the disease proved fatal. 



" When an inquiry was instituted, it was found that 

 over three hundred individuals had suffered from this 

 disease, and that all the sufferers had been using milk 

 from the same dairy. A sample of milk secured for 

 examination, when the epidemic was at its height, was 

 found to contain numerous micrococci, spores of fungi, 

 and spores which resembled those of Bacillus anthracis, 

 the organism which is associated with splenic fever. 

 When cultivated, the spores germinated, first into ex- 

 ceedingly delicate bacilli, and then into spore-bearing 

 filaments. On inoculating rats with the milk contain- 

 ing the spores, death followed in from eighteen to 

 twenty-four hours. The tissues of the rats, especially 

 in the region of the neck, were infiltrated with bacilli, 

 which, on cultivation, developed into spore-bearing fila- 

 ments. Inoculation proved both bacilli and spores to 

 be as virulent as the original spores found in the milk. 

 Confirmatory evidence of the relation of the bacillus to 

 the disease was obtained by the examination of pus from 

 an abscess over the angle of the jaw of one of the suffer- 

 ers. This pus contained spores and bacilli similar to 

 those found in, or developed from, the milk. Rats in- 

 oculated with a minute quantity of the pus, suffered 

 and died in the same way as the rats infected with the 

 milk, and the milk cultivations. Further investigations 



O 



proved that the organisms had been added to the milk 

 along with water. . . . 



44 Experiments, after the methods employed by Bur- 



