316 MICROBIOLOGY 



Migula 1 ; bacillus of swine fever Klein 2 ; Bacillus suipestifer 

 Kruse. 3 



Place in nature. This organism was discovered by 

 Salmon 4 and Smith in 1885 as the cause of the epizootic dis- 

 ease known as hog cholera. During the first three years of 

 their investigation they examined about 500 hogs and obtained 

 this organism from about 400 of them. Most of the cases 

 came from outbreaks of the disease in the eastern part of the 

 United States. The bacillus was thought to be parasitic and 

 not to exist in nature except in infected hogs and material 

 contaminated by them. Later de Schweinitz and Dorset 5 

 found that the cause of the epizootic hog cholera was a filter- 

 able virus. Dorset; Bolton and McBride 6 considered B. sui- 

 pestifer to be a secondary invader of more or less pathogenic 

 significance. Uhlenhuth 7 and his associates found B. suipes- 

 tifer in the intestine of 51 healthy swine out of 600 examined. 

 The views at present seem to be that this organism is responsi- 

 ble for certain lesions in pigs but that it is not the cause of 

 the epizootic disease known in this country as hog cholera. In 

 his study of this organism T. Smith 8 found seven varieties 

 isolated from different outbreaks of swine disease, two bacilli 

 bearing distinct names (viz. B. typhi murium Loeffler and 

 B. enteritides Gaertner), a bacillus isolated from aborting 

 mares, and the one described as the cause of the Danish swine- 

 pest, to belong to the same group. Later Reed and Carroll 9 



1 Migula. loc. cit. 



2 Klein. Centralbl. f. Bakt, Bd. XVIII (1895) p. 105. 



3 Kruse. loc. cit. 



* Salmon. Hog cholera, its history, nature, and treatment, U. S. 

 Dept. of Agric., 1889. 



5 de Schweinitz and Dorset. Circular No. 41, B. A. I., U. S. Dept. 

 of Agric., 1903. 



6 Dorset, Bolton and McBride. Bulletin No. 72, B. A. I., U. S. 

 Dept. of Agric., 1905. 



7 Uhlenhuth. Arbeiten a. d. Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamt, Bd. 

 XXVII (1908) p. 425. 



8 Smith. Bulletin No. 6, B. A. I., U. S. Dept. Agric., p. 189. 

 'Reed and Carroll. The Medical News, Vol. LXXV (1899) p. 



322. 



