GENUS BACILLUS 323 



and others have shown that with endotoxic substances typhoid 

 bacilli may produce a true toxin. In the blood of animals and 

 of people this organism produces agglutinins. Kraus, Norris 4 

 and others have demonstrated precipitins as a result of its 

 growth. The agglutination or Widal reaction for diagnosis is 

 based on the presence of the aggultinins. This property holds 

 with the bacillus of hog cholera, and for certain of the colon 

 bacilli. B. typhosus does not as a rule produce indol. Peck- 

 ham 5 found indol to be quite commonly produced. 



Pathogenesis. B. typhosus is the cause of typhoid fever 

 in man. It is pathogenic for guinea pigs w r hen inoculated in 

 the abdominal cavity. Occasionally cultures are sufficiently 

 virulent to cause death when injected subcutaneously. 



Identification. B. typhosus has no morphological char- 

 acters by which it can be identified. It is to be differentiated 

 from B. suipestifer and the colon group by means of its growth 

 on potato, its action on the sugars and its pathogenesis. 



BACILLI BELONGING TO THE INTERMEDIATE OR GAERTNER 



GROUP. 



Species in the group. In addition to B. suipestifer the 

 following named bacilli have been found to belong to the inter- 

 mediate or Gaertner group of bacteria as determined by their 

 morphology and cultural characters. They are also considered 

 as the meat poisoning bacteria. 



B: enteritidis Gartner. In 1888 Gartner 1 described a 

 bacillus which he isolated from the flesh of a cow the eating 

 of whose flesh had produced the symptoms of an acute intes- 

 tinal catarrh in fifty-seven people one of whom died and the 

 bacillus was found in the spleen and blood of the patient. 

 Gartner found that the bodies of the bacilli were very toxic. 

 Other occurrences of meat poisoning due to this or similar 



4 Norris. Jour, of Inf. Diseases, Vol. I (1904) p. 463. 

 "'Peckham. The Jour, of Exp. Med., Vol. II (1897) p. 551. 

 1 Gartner. Correspondenz-Blatter des allgemeinen arztlichen 

 Vereins von Thiiringen, No. 9, 1888. 



