DYSENTERY 105 



on a sound piece may infect the latter. It has been noted that the bacteria, or their 

 toxins, may be distributed unevenly in the meat eaten, so that one person consuming 

 the same meat may be made very ill while others eating this meat may escape 

 infection. Infection of food may occur not only from unclean handling but from the 

 material carried by flies or even from the faeces of mice or rats deposited on food- 

 stuffs. 



This organism is very pathogenic for laboratory animals, producing a haemor- 

 rhagic enteritis and at times a septicaemia. Where meat has been contaminated with 

 Gartner's bacillus toxins may have been produced, and symptoms of poisoning with 

 acute gastroenteritis would occur shortly after ingestion. This is not a true toxin 

 as it does not require a period of incubation before manifesting its toxic action. It 

 is interesting to note that this toxin is not destroyed by the boiling temperature, thus 

 differing from the toxin of the other important meat-poisoning (botulism) bacillus 

 B. botulinus which is rendered innocuous by a temperature of 65 or 70 C. If 

 there is only a little toxin introduced with the contaminated meat, the symptoms 

 will be delayed one or two days. Such organisms have been isolated in pure culture 

 from cases with high fever, marked intestinal derangement, with considerable blood 

 in the rather fluid stools. In two cases studied the disease was at first diagnosed 

 as a severe typhoid infection. Klein thinks the organism of Danysz's virus (to 

 kill rats during plague epidemics) may be identical with B. enteritidis. 



Proteus vulgaris. This organism is often encountered in plates 

 made from faeces, or sewage contaminated water. 



It is common in decaying meat or cheese, and cases of even fatal poisoning 

 with marked gastrointestinal symptoms and cardiac failure have been reported. 

 At times it is the cause of cystitis. The colonies on agar are moist and unevenly 

 spreading (amoeboid). The bacilli are very motile, long and slender, tend to form 

 filaments and, as a rule, are Gram negative. It digests blood-serum and is a rapid 

 liquefier of gelatin. In litmus milk it coagulates with a soft clot and an alkaline 

 reaction. Subsequently the litmus is reduced and the clot digested giving a dirty 

 yellowish-brown fluid. Indol is rarely produced. The cultures generally have a 

 putrefactive odor. In infective jaundice (Weil's disease) this organism has been 

 reported as the cause. Organisms of this group were formerly designated as B. 

 termo. 



Bacillus dysenteriae (Shiga, 1898). -Dysentery bacilli produce a 

 coagulation necrosis of the mucous membrane of the large intestine 

 and occasionally of the lower part of the ileum. Polymorphonuclears 

 are contained in the fibrin exudate. 



It was formerly thought that these lesions were of local origin, but the present 

 view is that toxins are produced which, being absorbed, are eliminated by the 

 large intestine with resulting necrosis. Flexner, by injecting rabbits intravenously 

 with a toxic autolysate, produced characteristic intestinal lesions. The toxin with- 

 stands a temperature of 70 C. without being destroyed. The toxin may cause 

 joint trouble. 



