BACILLUS OF SWINE ERYSIPELAS 279 



Weichselbaum found bacilli enclosed in a capsule and re- 

 sembling the Pneumobacillus. Gelatine is not liquefied, and 

 the thrust-culture shows a shining deposit resembling 

 stearine, while a greyish-white coat develops upon agar. 

 The bacilli discharge their colour when treated by Gram's 

 method. Subcutaneous injections cause the death of 

 the animals experimented on, and if the aortic valves be 

 injured, endocarditis sets in after infection. 



Bacillus of swine erysipelas. One of the most fatal diseases 

 affecting pigs is swine erysipelas, since the majority of the 

 animals attacked fall victims to this infectious disorder, 

 often even in a few hours. Feverish symptoms set in, 

 and at the same time there appear over the neck, abdomen, 

 and breast spots which are at first red, but later assume a 

 brown colour. The cause of this disease is considered by 

 Pasteur, Thuillier, Loffler, Schotte- 

 lius, and Schiitz to be a micro- 

 organism found in the blood and 

 juice of various organs, particularly 

 the spleen, and consisting of small 

 rods endowed with motility, which 

 show themselves in cultivation to 

 be facultative anaerobes. They take the aniline dyes 

 readily, and prove refractory to decolorising processes, 

 Gram's method included. The latter gives especially fine 

 results with sections. Gelatine is not liquefied, and colo- 

 nies form on the plate which possess a multiplicity of 

 radiating processes anastomosing with one another, so that 

 they look like bone-corpuscles (fig. 98). Thrust-cultures 

 grow slowly, development commencing beneath the free 

 surface of the gelatine and gradually advancing into the 

 deeper parts, while numerous ramifying fibres proceed out 

 from the thrust-canal, and fill the gelatine in such abund- 

 ance that it becomes cloudy. Upon agar a delicate layer 



