GENUS BACTERIUM 275 



in its cultural characters the bacterium of rabbit septicemia. 

 Its distribution is not known, except in the mouths of cats and 

 dogs. It was described as pathogenic for rabbits, guinea pigs, 

 young rats and mice. It stains with the aniline dyes, often 

 appearing in pairs as diplococci. It is Gram negative. It is 

 presumed from the description given that this organism does 

 not differ essentially from those found by Moore in the upper 

 air passages of cats and dogs, and which could not be differen- 

 tiated in the laboratory from the bacteria of swine plague 

 and rabbit septicemia. 



Bienstock obtained an organism from feces which mor- 

 phologically and in its cultural characters resembled fowl 

 cholera bacteria. It was pathogenic for white mice and rab- 

 bits. Bienstock 2 designates it Bacillus coprogenes parvus. 



BACTERIUM PULLORUM RETTGER. 



Synonyms. Bacillus of white diarrhoea in chickens, or 

 bacillary white diarrhea of growing chickens Rettger and 

 Stoneburn. 1 



Place in nature. Bacterium pullorum is the cause of a 

 serious epizootic disease of young chickens known as "bacil- 

 lary white diarrhoea." It was described by Rettger first as 

 the cause of a fatal septicemia and later called by him bacil- 

 lary white diarrhoea. 2 Jones 3 designates it fatal septicemia 

 or bacillary white diarrhoea. The organism exists in the in- 

 fected fowl, i. e., in fowls that had the disease when chicks and 

 recovered. It has been found in a certain number of the eggs 

 laid by such fowls. Jones states that the organism is dissemi- 

 nated by the indiscriminate purchasing of eggs for hatching 

 and of day old chicks. Rettger and Stoneburn found the 



2 Bienstock. Zeitsch. f. klin. Med., Bd. VIII. 



1 Rettger and Stoneburn. Bulletin No. 60, Storrs. Agric. Exp. 

 Station, 1909. 



2 Rettger. New York Medical Journal, Vol. LXXI (1900) p. 803. 

 Ibid. Vol. LXXIII (1901) p. 267. 



Rettger and Harvey. Journal Medical Research, Vol. XVIII 

 (1908) p. 277. 



3 Jones. Report N. Y. State Vet. College, 1909-1910, p. 111. 



