BOTULISM OR ALLANTIASIS 487 



profuse nasal and oral discharge, aphagia, aphonia, and interference 

 with the workings of the cardiac and respiratory centres. Micro- 

 scopically there are degenerative changes limited chiefly to the cells 

 of the gray matter of the medulla, cord and salivary glands. 1 



The disease produced by ingestion or injection of toxins of B. botu- 

 linus in experimental animals reproduces faithfully the symptom-com- 

 plex seen in the naturally acquired disease in man. The organism 

 itself does hot appear to grow in the tissues of warm-blooded animals 

 except just before and after death, hence it is logical to conclude that 

 the ingestion of food containing the toxins of this organism rather 

 than the generation of the toxin in the tissues of the host is the source 

 of intoxication. 



Bacteriological Diagnosis. The bacteriological diagnosis can not 

 be made ordinarily in man. It is necessary in the vast majority of 

 instances to obtain the meat in which the organisms have grown. 



(a) Microscopic. This is usually not feasible. 



(b) Cultural. Make anaerobic dextrose gelatin plates from the 

 suspected meat, selecting portions which are removed from contami- 

 nated surfaces, as follows: (1) Rapidly make a maceration of some 

 of the meat in sterile salt solution. (2) Heat some of the opalescent 

 fluid to 60 C. for thirty minutes, and make plates. (3) Add some of 

 the opalescent fluid to fermentation tubes according to Theobald 

 Smith's method (see page 473) with bits of sterile animal tissue. 

 (4) Plate some of the opalescent fluid directly without heating into 

 dextrose gelatin plates. (5) Examine the media for characteristic 

 colonies. 



(c) Identification of Toxin. 1. Filter some of the macerated meat 

 rapidly through sterile filter paper and inject 0.5 to 1 c.c. subcu- 

 taneously into a rabbit or guinea-pig. The protruding eyeballs and 

 respiratory failure usually suffice to establish the diagnosis, which 

 may be confirmed by staining sections of the central nervous system 

 and identifying the lesions. (2) Add 2 to 5 c.c. of the filtrate to some 

 bread and feed a rabbit with it. Note the symptoms. (3) Filter 

 some of the broth from the fermentation tube in Step 3 of the cultural 

 identification and inject subcutaneously or feed to a rabbit and observe 

 symptoms. 



(d) Inspection of Suspected Meat. It is difficult usually to detect 

 anything abnormal in meat in which B. botulinus has grown. Occa- 



1 Marineseo, Compt. rend. soc. de biol., 1896. Kempner and Pollak, Deutsch. med. 

 Wchnschr., 1897, xxxiii, 521. 



