HISTOKV 519 



belonging to the class of ovoid-belted germs, to which variety 

 of disease also belongs the swine plague, southern cattle 

 plague, Wildest uche, hog cholera, and yellow fever in man." 

 BVom the organs of cattle dead from the disease he reported to 

 have invariably isolated a bacillus which he affirms to be its 

 cause. He identified the bacillus which he found in the 

 a.nimal tissues with the one described by Burrill as the cause 

 of a disease in cornstalks. In 1893, Dr. Theobald Smith iden- 

 tified the bacillus described by Professor Burrill as Bacillus 

 cloaca. 



Billings also found pneumonia to be one of the lesions 

 characteristic of this affection and in a subsequent bulletin he 

 places great importance upon this lesion, although he adds 

 very few additional observations to sustain the claim. 



In 1890, a few animals from a shipload of American cattle 

 landed at La Villette, France, died of pneumonia. They were 

 examined very carefully by Nocard and other French veterin- 

 arians. From the diseased lung Nocard obtained a micro- 

 organism which corresponded very closely to the description of 

 the bacillus of the cornstalk disease of cattle described by 

 Billings in America. The publication of this fact gave rise to 

 a temporary supposition that this American cornstalk disease 

 might be a menace to the cattle of Europe and consequently 

 initial steps were taken to require American cattle to be quar- 

 antined against it. The fact was subsequently determined 

 that the bacillus isolated by Nocard belonged to the septicemia 

 hemorrhagica group of bacteria which is usually found to i)e 

 associated with a form of bovine pneumonia occasionally met 

 with in America, but not known to be contagious, and the 

 matter was dropped. 



A single experiment was made at Champaign. 111., in 

 1889. in which the etiological importance of corn smut was 

 tested with negative results. A bacteriological examination 

 of the organs from an animal that died in a cornstalk field, 

 supposedly of this disease, was made with negative results by 

 Professor Burrill in 1889. 



In 1892, Moore investigated this disease and his report 



