310 CLINICAL BACTERIOLOGY. 



All nutrient media emit a disagreeable odor. 



Formerly, Hauser distinguished three distinct varieties of 

 proteus, the proteus vulgaris, the proteus mirabilis, and the pro- 

 teus Zenkeri ; but later he abandoned this differentiation. 



Experiments on Animals. If rabbits or guinea-pigs 

 receive intraperitoneal or intravenous injections of consider- 

 able amounts (three cubic centimeters) of proteus-culture, the 

 animals die of acute enteritis and peritonitis. Intravenous 

 injection of from five to ten cubic centimeters of a bouillon- 

 culture is followed by much more typical phenomena in the 

 dog. The animal suffers from bloody vomiting and bloody 

 diarrhea attended with severe tenesmus. The temperature 

 is elevated, and the sclerae are distinctly icteric. On autopsy 

 the entire digestive tract, from the cardia to the anus, is the 

 seat of an intense hemorrhagic inflammation. The blood 

 and the internal viscera of the dog contain none or but a 

 few bacteria. Exactly the same result is obtained with fil- 

 tered cultures and with the bodies of the bacilli carefully 

 destroyed. In mice, which, likewise, succumb to proteus- 

 inoculation, the bacilli may be cultivated from the viscera. 

 The organisms become the more virulent the oftener they 

 are passed through the bodies of mice. 



Occurrence of the Proteus. Proteus-bacteria are 

 present in all putrefactive processes, and also in the gastro- 

 intestinal canal. In human beings the proteus, in mixed 

 infection with the ordinary exciting agents of inflammation, 

 constitutes the cause of the putrid, fetid phlegmons at times 

 observed in the sequence of cadaveric infection. Besides, 

 the proteus gives rise to so-called putrid intoxication, by 

 subsequently penetrating into a primary focus of suppura- 

 tion or a traumatic lesion, multiplying there, and generating 

 metabolic products that are absorbed. According to H. 

 Jager certain forms of febrile icterus, known as Weil's dis- 

 ease, are caused by the proteus. Jager succeeded in culti- 

 vating a fluorescent proteus from the urine, and after death 

 also from the viscera of individuals suffering from Weil's 

 disease. Infection had taken place in these cases from 

 bathing in streams the water of which was contaminated by 

 proteus. On the banks of a tributary brook an epidemic had 

 occurred among fowl, the exciting agent of which was like- 

 wise found to be the proteus fluorescens. Further, the pro- 

 teus was found by E. Levy to be the cause of hemorrhagic 



