PLEUKO-PNEUMONIA. l81 



it is the opposite, notwithstandiug what Drs. Yeo and Wood- 

 head have stated, and which statements have been partly 

 accepted by Professor MTadyean. 



There was another important differential sign. Pressure 

 caused a notable quantity of thick, viscid, light yellow pus — 

 analogous to that observed in certain forms of verminous 

 broncho-pneumonia — to issue from the bronchioles (this con- 

 dition was very manifest in the Liverpool cattle in 1879) ; but 

 a microscopic examination of this fluid and of the lung-pulp 

 did not lead to the detection of ova, embryos, or worms of any 

 kind. The bronchial mucous membrane was inflamed, thickened, 

 corrugated, and more or less denuded of its epithelium, while 

 the submucous connective tissue was infiltrated with yellow 

 serum, and considerably thickened in places ; but the blood- 

 vessels contained no thrombi. 



This muco-pus from the bronchioles was found to contain an 

 abundance of short, oval, mobile bacteria, which appeared to be 

 the only microbes present. The organisms were also found, as 

 if in a state of pure culture, in the hepatised tissue, and more 

 especially in the limpid serosity that distended the perilobular 

 lymphatic sac. This single character alone sufficed to affirm 

 that the lesion was not of a pleuro-pneumonic kind ; for it is 

 well known that the lung serum in that disease is very poor 

 in figured elements, and that when it is collected pure from the 

 infiltrated septa it does not usually contain any microbes. 



In this instance the microbe, which existed in great numbers, 

 belonged to the large class of ovoid bacteria of which the 

 rounded poles fix aniline colouring matters more strongly than 

 the centres. It is well known, as pointed out by Nocard, that 

 the fowl cholera, the duck cholera, the septicaemia of rabbits 

 and ferrets, the game plague, the swine plague, &c., all have 

 analogous microbes, and which can only be distinguished from each 

 other by the collective biological characters, and more especially 

 by the effects of their inoculation on different kinds of animals. 



Experimental inoculations were now made by M. Nocard, 

 when he found that mice, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and pigeons, 

 when inoculated subcutaneously with two or three drops of the 

 serum or the culture, succumbed in less than forty-eight hours, 

 without oedema at the point of inoculation, with intense con- 

 gestion of all the viscera, but without any definite localisation. 



