TEXT-BOOK OF BACTERIOLOGY. 339 



from which they awaken no more. At the climax of the disease, 

 which terminates fatally in about twenty-four to forty-eight hours, 

 the animals discharge very copious, liquid or slimy, whitish-gray 

 excrements containing large quantities of bacilli. 



The greater part of these disturbances is doubtless to be attri- 

 buted to poisonous products of metabolism. Allusions in that di- 

 rection have already been made by Pasteur. He filtered bouillon 

 cultures of these bacilli through clay or gypsum cells, and large 

 quantities of the fluid, free from rods, produced coma or somnolence 

 in animals without any other injuries. 



The post-mortem examination exhibits, among the more decided 

 changes, a rather considerable swelling of the spleen (sometimes 

 also of the liver), hemorrhagic, circumscribed infiltrations in the 

 lungs, and especially a very intense inflammation of the small in- 

 testine, particularly in its upper portion. The mucous membrane 

 is greatly swollen and reddened, frequently interspersed with small 

 hemorrhages, or ulcers in cases progressing somewhat more slowly. 

 The rods are found, microscopically, in the blood and in all the 

 organs of the infected animals. 



XXIX. BACTERIA OF SEPTIC^MIA HEMORRHAGICA. 



The bacilli of chicken cholera are the first and most important 

 members of a large group of micro-organisms, so slightly differen- 

 tiated in part, that they may properly be considered together as 

 belonging to the same species. They have the same appearance in 

 stained preparations (the more distinct ends and the pale middle 

 portion) and the same features of growth on our artificial culture 

 media, as regards the shape of the colonies, the development of 

 puncture culture, time of growth, etc. 



But a definite number of these bacteria have a special peculiar- 

 ity not present in the chicken-cholera bacilli. This circumstance is 

 important enough to induce us almost to banish these micro- 

 organisms from this class. The bacillus of the ferret plague, dis- 

 covered by Eberth and Schimmelbusch; the bacterium described by 

 Billings as the cause of the swine plague and by Salmon as causing 

 hog cholera; and also the bacillus of the Danish hog plague, the 

 hog pestilence, are all of them motile and supplied with distinct 

 flagella. Fully identical with or very nearly related to the chicken- 

 cholera bacteria are the bacillus of the hog plague discovered by 

 Loffler and more closely studied by Schiitz; the bacillus of duck 

 cholera investigated by Cornil; the bacterium of the game plague 

 minutely examined by Kitt and Hueppe; finally the bacillus of sep- 

 ticcemia of rabbits discovered by Gaffky. 



