NON-SPORING BACILLI 265 



undoubtedly do occur without human beings becoming 

 infected ; (2) Field mice do not contract the disease from 

 the tarabagan, though they have every chance of doing so, 

 and are known to be susceptible to plague ; (3) Domestic 

 animals also escape it, although dogs eat the flesh of the 

 dead marmot. 



Dr. B. A. Barykin reported in 1909 the following facts : 

 In 1906 the marmots around a settlement called Abogaitui 

 showed a high mortality from spring to autumn, but the 

 inhabitants were aware of the danger and avoided all 

 contact with the sick animals, except a Cossack, who 

 was in indifferent health and had a craving for the 

 flesh of a tarabagan. He got some, fell ill with the 

 symptoms of plague, and died in four days. Others 

 became ill, and in all eight died with symptoms of 

 pneumonic plague. Post mortems were held in two cases, 

 and bacilli indistinguishable from the plague bacilli were 

 found in the organs ; and mice injected with the 

 splenic juice died in twenty-six hours with the typical 

 appearances. This was in September, 1906. In the 

 autumn of 1907, marmots were caught or killed by the 

 party and examined for the presence of disease. In one 

 of these animals showing no external signs of being ill 

 save some degree of malnutrition, the spleen was found 

 to be swollen -and congested, and contained large numbers 

 of bacilli identical in morphology and culture with the 

 plague bacilli. A fortnight later, twelve miles from where 

 this animal was discovered, the men of an isolated Cossack 

 family, hunting the marmots around them, killed one 

 showing clear signs of illness. In spite of the counsel of 

 the elder men the animal was skinned and the body was 

 given to a girl of thirteen years to take to the fields. She 

 dragged its body (said to be 15 lb. weight) after her 

 through the grass, and returned barefoot over the same 

 path. On the next day she fell ill, a bubo appeared in 

 the left groin, and she died some days later with all the 

 symptoms of plague. From the bubo, from a pustule on 

 a finger, and from the spleen, bacilli indistinguishable from 

 plague bacilli were isolated, and being injected into mice 

 caused their death in eighteen hours, of septicaemia. 

 Neither the body nor the skin of the animal was recovered. 



