12 QUATERCENTENARY STUDIES IN PATHOLOGY 



B. enteritidis Gaertner. It is significant that Nocard and L^clainche 

 class it amongst Coli-bacillary infections. Confirmatory evidence of its 

 close relationship to B. enteritidis is furnished by MacConkey, who finds 

 that, in their sugar reactions, the two organisms closely correspond. 



Nocard states that the lesions in naturally infected animals (parrots) 

 are those of an fntense septicaemia. Wolf had previously (1882) described 

 a similar disease in parrots, and had noted in the liver gray or grayish- 

 white hard nodules the size of a millet seed or even larger. These were 

 also present, though smaller and more scattered in the spleen and 

 kidneys. Nocard and Leclainche admit the possibility of the two 

 diseases being identical. 



B. der Darmdiphtherie des Kaninchens^ Ribbert{^). — This organism was 

 met with chiefly in pregnant rabbits. Apart from fibrinous peritonitis, 

 the liver and spleen showed numerous minute foci and nodules, in which 

 the liver cells were necrotic. Inoculation reproduced all the morbid 

 changes met with in the spontaneous form of the disease, inclusive of 

 the diphtheritic condition in the intestine. 



B. diphtherice columbarum^ Loeffler. — Lehmann and Neumann 

 investigated a culture obtained from Krai, and found that in its 

 morphological and biological characters it exactly resembled B. 

 enteritidis. In pigeons affected by the disease, yellow, prominent, 

 fairly adherent spots occur on the mucous membrane of the mouth. 

 These spots consist of a cheesy material. Caseous pseudo-membranes 

 partially cover the mucous membranes of the mouth, pharynx and nasal 

 cavities. The bacillus is pathogenic to the rabbit, when given intra- 

 venously. Mice are killed with a septicaemia, whereas in the guinea-pig 

 and dog only an abscess is produced at the site of inoculation. 



It is thus evident that organisms belonging to the B. enteritidis 

 Gaertner group have a common character in the property they possess of 

 causing necrosis of the tissues selected by them for invasion. Another 

 fact of interest is the wide distribution of these organisms — a fact which 

 is a sufficient justification in attempting to trace their relationship to the 

 type organism of the group, namely, that concerned in a frequent 

 variety of food-poisoning, and indirectly to the still ill-defined class of 

 organisms responsible for those obscure cases of continued fever in man 

 — the paratyphoid bacilli. 



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