344 THE ALCALIGENES DYSENTERY TYPHOID 



THE PARATYPHOID GROUP. 



There is a group of closely related bacilli which exhibit cultural 

 and pathogenic characters intermediate between those of the typhoid, 

 dysentery and colon groups of bacteria, respectively. These organ- 

 isms are variously known as the hog cholera, Salmonella, Gartner, 

 enteritidis, intermediate, paracolon or paratyphoid group. 



Smith and Salmon 1 isolated the type organism of the group from 

 the intestinal contents of swine infected with hog cholera. They 

 named their organism the hog cholera bacillus. 2 Three years later 

 Gartner 3 described an organism, B. enteritidis, recovered by him both 

 from the spleen and blood of a fatal case of meat-poisoning, and from 

 the suspected meat (beef) itself. Numerous epidemics of meat poison- 

 ing 4 have been studied bacteriologically during the years following 

 Gartner's discovery, and very similar, if not identical, bacilli have 

 been recovered from many of the patients. 



In 1893 Smith and Moore 5 made the important observation that 

 organisms culturally indistinguishable from the hog cholera bacillus 

 could be isolated not infrequently from the intestinal contents of 

 normal cattle, swine, sheep, cats and dogs. The significance of this 

 discovery from the view-point of meat poisoning was not understood 

 at that time. 



In 1896 Achard and Bensaude 6 described paratyphoid fever and 

 outlined the essential clinical and bacteriological diagnostic differences 

 between this disease and typhoid fever. They obtained paratyphoid 

 bacilli from the urine and blood stream of several cases, and recovered 

 the organism from a secondary purulent arthritis in one of them as 

 as well. Schottmiiller 7 also obtained cultures of paratyphoid bacilli 

 both from the feces and the blood stream of several cases of para- 

 typhoid fever. Brion and Kayser 8 separated these organisms into two 

 types: B. paratyphosus alpha, which produced a slight permanent 

 acidity in litmus milk and gave an "invisible" growth on potato 



1 Ann. Rep. United States Bur. Animal Ind., 1885, vol. ii. 



2 A year earlier Klein (Virchows Arch., 1884, xcv, 468) obtained a bacillus from 

 diseased swine which he regarded as the causative factor of hog cholera, but his organism 

 produced spores, which at once distinguished it from the paratyphoid type. Neither the 

 Klein bacillus nor the Smith-Salmon bacillus cause hog cholera; a filterable virus is the 

 probable infecting agent. 



3 Correspondz.-Blatt des allgem. arztl. Vereins von Thiiringen, 1888, No. 9. 



4 Not to be confused with botulismus (see B. botulinus). 



5 Additional investigations concerning swine diseases, Washington, D. C., 1893. 



6 Soc. Med. des Hop. de Paris, 1896, 3d Serie, xiii, 679. 



7 Deutsch. med. Wchnschr., 1900, p. 511. 



8 Miinchen. med. Wchnschr., 1902, p. 611. 



