246 BACILLI PATHOGENIC IN MAN. 



organs are but little altered, the spleen is for the most 

 part enlarged and of a dark colour, and the lungs have 

 a pale greyish-red appearance. Immediately after death 

 few or no bacilli are found in the blood of the heart ; on 

 the other hand they are plentiful in the juice from the 

 various organs, and also more especially in and on the 

 serous coats of the organs. (In this point also this 

 organism differs in an important manner from anthrax.) 

 If some time has elapsed since the death of the animal 

 the bacilli are found everywhere, eyen in the blood of 

 the heart, in large numbers ; thus they are apparently 

 able to multiply actively in the dead body. In mice, 

 however, the bacilli are not uncommonly found imme- 

 diately after death in the blood of the heart and in the 

 blood vessels of the organs ; here therefore it is easily 

 possible to mistake the disease for anthrax. As a 

 rule, in mice the bacilli are only seen in the crushed 

 spleen, on the pleural covering of the lungs, and most 

 beautifully in preparations of the mesentery, obtained 

 by spreading out a loop of intestine over a cover glass, 

 loosening the mesentery at the margin of the cover glass, 

 and subsequently treating it like the ordinary cover glass 

 preparations (drying, heating, staining). In mice the 

 osdema is for the most part not very marked ; the aninicils 

 die very quickly on an average 16 20 hours after 

 inoculation. Horses, sheep, and swine are liable to 

 malignant oedema; on the contrary, according to the 

 researches of Arloing and Chauveau, cattle are not 

 affected. The animals cannot be infected with such 

 small quantities of bacilli as in the case of anthrax ; to 

 transmit the disease from one animal to another it is 

 best to employ small pieces of spleen, or one or two drops 

 of oedematous fluid, or a portion of the subcutaneous 

 tissue ; from cultivations it is best to impregnate a silk 

 thread with a little of the fluid containing bacilli, and 

 then place this under the skin. The wound also must not 

 be too trivial, it must really penetrate through the cutis ; 

 it is only then that the conditions necessary for the 

 existence of this anaerobic organism are obtained. 

 Scarcely noticeable symptoms follow the intravenous 



