698 PATHOGENIC MICROORGANISMS 



the lymphatics of the bowel than is found in typhoid fever. During 

 the disease the bacteria can often be cultivated from the blood, and the 

 serum of the patient may agglutinate specifically paratyphoid strains. 

 In this way the diagiiosis can often be made. Libmann 47 has isolated 

 the organism from the fluid aspirated from the gall bladder in a case 

 operated on for cholecystitis. 



MEAT POISONING. As stated in the beginning of this chapter, this 

 disease and its etiological causation were first described by Gaertner in 

 1888. His observations were based upon an epidemic occurring in 

 Germany in which 57 cases of more or less violent gastroenteritis 

 occurred in a group of people who had eaten the meat of a condemned 

 cow. From a fatal case and from the meat itself, Gaertner isolated 

 the organisms which bear his name. 



Since then, many similar observations have been made. Uhlenhuth 

 and Hiibener 28 have made a very thorough study of the literature, to 

 which the reader is referred for more extensive treatment of the subject. 

 They have tabulated a large number of outbreaks which took place in 

 Germany and the neighboring countries between the years 1885 and 

 1910. A considerable number of these were studied by competent 

 bacteriologists and can be regarded as reliably reported. It appears 

 that beef and pork are the most common sources of infection, whereas 

 infection is also possible from horse meat and mutton. In the majority 

 of cases the disease followed the ingestion of the meat of cattle that were 

 diseased before being slaughtered. The fact that the organisms have 

 appeared in the circulation of the animal before death and have perhaps 

 accumulated in the meat that is eaten, may account for the acute nature 

 of the disease and the severe toxic symptoms, since, as we know, the 

 poisons of the bacterial bodies of organisms of this group may be quite 

 powerful, may act directly upon the gastro-intestinal mucosa and may 

 not be destroyed by considerable heating. It must not be forgotten, 

 however, that organisms belonging to the paratyphoid " B " and 

 enteritidis groups may be present in the intestinal canals of a large 

 percentage of normal animals of the species mentioned and that to some 

 extent invasion of the organs may be a post-mortem phenomenon. 

 The studies of most observers, however, seem to indicate that the most 

 severe infections occur when the animal was diseased before .being killed. 

 Again, there have been cases in which infection has been due to second- 



47 Libmann, Jour, of Med. Res., viii, 1902. 



48 Uhlenhuth and Hiibener , Kolle and Wassermann Handb., 2d edit. Vol. 3. 



