716 INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



stated that " the evidence obtained during the whole inquiry justifies 

 the conclusion at which they have arrived, viz., that there is no 

 epizootic of swine except swine fever in any part of the United 

 Kingdom which requires to be dealt with under the provisions of 

 the Act of 1894." 



Finally, it may be said that the great factors in perpetuating swine 

 fever will always be pigs which are affected with that disease in the 

 less fatal and unrecognisable form. These animals are constantly 

 distributing the germs of swine fever through their highly infective 

 evacuations wherever they may be taken during the whole period of 

 their illness, and the final extinction of the malady must depend upon 

 the possibility of enforcing measures which will have the effect of 

 preventing the movement of pigs affected with swine fever in this 

 particular form. 



HEMORRHAGIC SEPTICEMIA IN CATTLE- 



In 1902 Drs. Wilson and Brimhall, of the State Board of Health of 

 Minnesota, U.S.A., described under the title of *' haemorrhagic septi- 

 caemia of cattle " a widespread infectious disease of bovines which has 

 the following general characteristics : — The disease is distributed the 

 world over, but is apparently most common in low-lying regions, 

 and most general in wet seasons. The animals attacked are of all 

 ages. The onset of the disease is sudden, its course rapid, and its 

 termination usually (90 to 98 per cent.) fatal. Thirty to 90 per cent, 

 of all animals in an infected herd die. The clinical symptoms are 

 refusal of food, cessation of rumination and lactation, initially increased 

 temperature (107° to 109° F. : 42° to 43° C), rapid, laboured breathing, 

 sometimes bloody discharge from nostrils, bladder, and bowels, and 

 non-crepitant swellings in the throat region, back of shoulders, or 

 about the fetlocks. The most striking pathological lesions are 

 haemorrhages from 1 millimetre to 20 centimetres in diameter, through- 

 out the subcutaneous, submucous, subserous and intermuscular con- 

 nective tissue, infiltrating the lymphatic glands, and involving several 

 or all of the internal organs. The spleen is neither enlarged nor 

 darkened. The causative bacteria, which may be isolated from the 

 larger haemorrhagic areas, lymph glands, heart's blood, lung, spleen, 

 etc., have the following distinguishing characteristics : 



Ovoidal bacilli, with rounded ends of 0'5 to 0"8 microns in trans- 

 verse diameter, and I'O to 1*5 microns in length; sometimes paired and 

 sometimes in chains of three to six individuals. The bacilli in the 

 tissues exhibit polar staining with an unstained *' belt " or ''middle 

 piece." They are non-capsulated, non-spore-forming, non-Gramstain- 

 ing, and non-motile. They grow best aerobically at 98'5^ F. (37° C), 



