452 THE PASTEURELLA GROUP 



Bisanti succeeded in immunizing rabbits by inserting a culture of the 

 bacillus in a collodion sac beneath the skin or in the peritoneal cavity. 

 Rabbits treated in this way were at the end of 20 days unaffected when 

 fed on virulent cultures. 



SECTION IV. THE ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF THE 



ORGANISM. 



The blood, the internal organs and the intestinal contents should provide 

 the material for bacteriological examination. 



1. Microscopical examination. Films prepared with blood, scrapings of the 

 internal organs or contents of the intestinal canal should be stained with 

 carbol-thionin or carbol-blue and by Gram's method. Sections of the internal 

 organs are particularly interesting and show the capillaries engorged with 

 bacilli. 



2. Cultures. Tubes of ordinary broth or, better, veal broth, should be sown 

 with blood from the heart or with a loopful of pulp from the spleen or liver. 



At the post mortem a small stock of blood can be collected and stored for sowing 

 cultures later. For this purpose aspirate the blood into a pipette (p. 75) and then 

 seal, first the fine end then the constricted portion. Culture media sown with 

 blood stored in this way will even many months later give growths of virulent 

 organisms. 



3. Inoculations. Inoculation should be made for preference into a fowl 

 or a rabbit. Blood from the heart or spleen pulp or better still a few drops 

 of a recent culture in fowl broth or serum broth may be used. 



Epizootics similar to fowl cholera in other birds. 



The bacillus of duck cholera. Cornil and Toupet described an epizootic among 

 ducks which was characterized by diarrhoea, often blood-stained, and by feebleness 

 and drowsiness. The disease is due to a small bacillus very similar to that of fowl 

 cholera, from which it is only differentiated by the following characteristics. 



1. It grows on potato giving rise to a scanty yellowish growth. 



2. Cultures of the organism which are virulent for ducks are almost harmless 

 to fowls and pigeons and are only fatal to rabbits when inoculated in large doses. 



Lignieres does not include this organism in the pasteurella group. 



Klein's [so-called] bacillus of grouse disease. A small, motile bacillus measuring 

 0*6 1'5/x long, gram-negative, giving copious growths aerobically on broth, agar, 

 gelatin (without liquefaction) and potato, coagulating milk and producing indol. 

 [This organism appears to be the colon bacillus which invades the tissues of the 

 birds after death.] 



This bacillus should not therefore be included in the pasteurella group as defined 

 by Lignieres. 



'The bacillus of wood-pigeon disease (Leclainche). A motile bacillus morpho- 

 logically identical with Klein's grouse disease bacillus. It grows on potato and is 

 virulent for pigeons, rabbits and guinea-pigs. 



The bacillus of infectious enteritis of fowls (Klein). The symptoms of the disease 

 are very similar to those of fowl cholera. The bacillus presents the typical charac- 

 teristics of the pasteurella group, is non-motile, gram-negative, does not liquefy 

 gelatin and does not grow on potato. 



The bacillus of epizootic dysentery in fowls and turkeys (Lucet). This organism 

 should be distinguished from the preceding (Lignieres). It grows on potato. 



The bacillus of coscoroba swan disease. Tretrop described a disease which broke 

 out among the Coscoroba swans in the Zoological Gardens at Antwerp. 



The disease has the symptoms of duck-cholera, intestinal disturbances being the 

 more prominent feature ; it does not attack other species of swans, teal, ducks, nor 

 geese which have been in contact with the sick birds. The cause of the disease is 

 a small cocco-bacillus, indifferently aerobic, similar to the fowl pasteurella in appear- 



