510 BACILLI WHICH PRODUCE SEPTICAEMIA 



cloudiness, while the Marseilles bacillus at the end of twenty-four 

 hours had caused the fluid to be clouded, a film of bacteria had 

 formed upon the surface and a deposit at the bottom of the tube ; the 

 hog-cholera bacillus produced a less degree of opacity in the bouillon. 



Pathogenesis. This bacillus is pathogenic for sparrows and 

 other small birds when injected beneath the skin in small amounts, 

 and also for pigeons in a longer time five to fourteen days. Frosch 

 reports a negative result from subcutaneous injections into rabbits, 

 guinea-pigs, mice, and pigeons, but his cultures appear to have be- 

 come attenuated, as the recent cultures of Eberth and Schimmelbusch 

 were fatal to pigeons in four out of five experiments. Two rabbits 

 were inoculated subcutaneously by Rietsch and Jobert with half a 

 Pravaz syringef ul of a pure culture of the Marseilles bacillus ; one of 

 these died on the sixth day and the other survived. 



In sparrows, which succumb in from twenty-four to thirty-six 

 hours after receiving a small amount of a pure culture in the breast 

 muscle, the bacillus is present in the blood in large numbers, and a 

 purulent pleuritis and pericarditis is found at the autopsy. In the 

 ferrets from which Eberth and Schimmelbusch obtained their cultures 

 the bacillus was not present in the blood in sufficient numbers to be 

 readily demonstrated by microscopical examination, but it was ob- 

 tained in pure cultures from the liver, spleen, and lungs. The prin- 

 cipal pathological appearances noted were enlargement of the spleen 

 and pneumonia. Caneva reports that the Marseilles bacillus injected 

 into white mice gives rise to an extensive abscess at the point of in- 

 oculation, but does not kill adult animals. In a young mouse which 

 succumbed to such an injection the bacilli were not generally dis- 

 tributed in the tissues, but were found as emboli in the smaller capil- 

 laries. This bacillus, then, is distinguished from the similar bacilli 

 previously described by its comparatively slight pathogenic power, 

 as well as by its more vigorous growth in culture media, and the 

 other characters heretofore mentioned. 



BACILLUS SEPTICUS AGRIGENUS. 



Obtained by Nicolaier from soil which had been manured. 



Morphology. Resembles the bacillus of fowl cholera and of rabbit sep- 

 ticaemia, of which it is perhaps a variety, but is usually somewhat longer. 

 It also sometimes shows the end-staining characteristic of Bacillus septicae- 

 mias haemorrhagicae, but not so constantly and not so sharply defined. 



Biological Characters. An aerobic, (non-liquefying ?), non- motile ba- 

 cillus. Does not form spores. 



In gelatin plate cultures spherical, finely granular colonies are developed 

 having a yellowish-brown central portion, which is separated by a dark 

 ring from a grayish-brown marginal zone; later this difference in color dis- 

 appears and the colonies become more decidedly granular. In stick cultures 

 the growth consists of a thin layer which is not at all characteristic. 



Pathogenesis. Small quantities of a pure culture injected into the ear 



