248 CLINICAL BACTERIOLOGY. 



mydriasis, aphonia, dysphagia, and blepharoptosis. Cats 

 withstand the action of considerable amounts of the cul- 

 ture without injury when introduced by the stomach ; but 

 subcutaneous injection, on the other hand, leads to death 

 amid such typical manifestations that the cat may be con- 

 sidered as the physiologic reagent for the bacillus botulinus. 

 After considerable doses (of from five to ten cubic centi- 

 meters) cats die within one or two days, but after smaller 

 doses (of from one to two cubic centimeters), only after 

 from eight to twelve days. After an incubation-period gen- 

 erally of thirty-six hours the animal becomes depressed, no 

 longer moves about, and refuses nourishment. On the 

 third day it exhibits a peculiar physiognomy. The facial 

 expression is dull, and the blinking and licking move- 

 ments that healthy cats never fail to exhibit are abol- 

 ished ; the eyes are almost completely immobile, and the 

 pupils widely dilated. The dilatation of the pupils be- 

 comes, in the course of a few days, quite enormous. The 

 tongue hangs out of the mouth and can scarcely be drawn 

 in again. Besides, aphonia sets in and, further, dysphagia, 

 which finally may increase to total aphagia. Urine and 

 feces are retained. Death occurs usually in consequence 

 of paralysis of respiration and circulation. Small doses of 

 the bacilli give rise to a form of marasmus, as a result of which 

 the cats die after the lapse of several weeks amid paralytic 

 manifestations and with degeneration of the parenchymatous 

 organs. Rabbits, guinea-pigs, and mice die in consequence 

 of subcutaneous injection of minimal amounts, amid pa- 

 retic manifestations, salivation, dysphagia, etc. After injec- 

 tions of one or two cubic centimeters of the culture pigeons 

 exhibit at first paresis of the wings, and then general par- 

 alysis. Intravenous injection leads to the same results as 

 subcutaneous inoculation, while intraperitoneal injection is 

 followed by less marked consequences. 



The pathologic-anatomic alterations found at autopsy 

 consist in more or less marked hyperemia of most of the 

 viscera ; in an acute, sometimes interstitial, sometimes par- 

 enchymatous, hepatitis, with fatty degeneration ; in des- 

 quamative parenchymatous nephritis ; in fatty degenera- 

 tion of the muscular fibers of the heart and of the ocular 

 muscles. Of especial interest are the degenerative changes 

 in the central nervous system, which are especially marked 

 in the spinal cord, and less so in the medulla oblongata. 



