DISTEMPER AND CONTAGIOUS CATARRHAL FEVER 2G9 



of nervous distemper a peculiar diplococcus to which they ascribe import- 

 ant pathogenic action. Jess cultivated a bacillus, found in the conjunc- 

 tival, nasal and other mucous membranes and organs of the body, which 

 was 1.3//. long and 0.6u. wdde. Injections of the culture were made both 

 intraperitoneally and subcutaneously; three or four days afterwards a 

 fever appeared which was accompanied by great flow of tears, and diar- 

 rhcea, and in the vicinity of the inoculated spot there appeared isolated 

 red spots. Petropawloski found, in all cases of distemper, a bacillus which 

 resembled that described by Galli-Valeris, and also that described by 

 Babes and Barzanesco but differed from the first by its negative action to 

 Gram's coloring method and, from the latter by its easy cultivation on 

 potato. j\Iari thinks that the baccilli of Petropowlowsky as well as those 

 of Schantyro are in all probability coli-bacilli and really not related in any 

 way etiologically to the baccilli of distemper. Casol claims to have 

 found a micrococcus, which is both isolated and in groups, and claims it is 

 colored by Gram's method. From these he made pure cultivations and 

 transmitted it successfully. Lignieres places distemper among the 

 hemorrhagic septicaemias and calls it Pasteurellosis canum, and is due to 

 a particularly virulent bi-polar bacillus (Pasteurella canis). Trasbot, on 

 the other hand, thinks that the microorganism cultivated by Lignieres is a 

 pneumo-inciter and only produces the secondary phenomena in the disease 

 and is not the original cause of the development of the disease. Wunsch- 

 heim has isolated a short rod, very similar to the bacteria of chicken 

 cholera. Piorkowski found in the spleen and lung a small staff bacillus, the 

 cultivations of which when inoculated, developed the disease and death 

 in two or three w^eeks. Ceramicola cultivated an ovoid polymorphus 

 taken from dogs which had died, particularly of virulent distemper, and 

 the bacteria possessed all the morphological properties of the inciter of 

 hemorrhagic septicaemia, and the animal inoculated died with all the 

 characteristics of true distemper. Carre is of the opinion that none of 

 the organisms visible to the microscope can be considered the exciters of 

 distemper in the dog; he took nasal mucus from an infected dog, passed 

 it through a filter, the filtrate when spread on different nutritive media 

 remained sterile, and the defibrinated blood of an animal inoculated with 

 the filtrate produced fever of the nostril and pustules. This blood was 

 also spread on various nutritive media and also remained sterile. Cadiot 

 and Breton and others are of the opinion that in distemper there is an 

 ultra-microscopical organism which can be filtered, and with this microbe 

 there is also a microorganism which may have some influence on the course 

 of the disease (foetid bacillus and Pasteurella canis). 



Direct vaccinating methods have been practised by various practi- 

 tioners. For instance, Trasbot transferred secretions from the nose and 

 pustules of animals affected with the disease, by means of a number of 



