INFECTIONS OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT 81 



into a rabbit which was afterwards killed and incubated 

 showed in a high degree the typical gas formation. 1 



Observations on other cats showed the presence of 

 considerable numbers of spore-holding bacilli and free 

 spores, sometimes in chains, in addition to vegetative 

 forms of anaerobes. The position of these spores and 

 spore-holding bacilli has not been established in a bacte- 

 riological sense. Observations were also made upon the 

 intestinal contents of the wolf, tiger, and lion. Several 

 different tigers were studied, and the observations were 

 not confined to the examination of one lion and one wolf. 

 The material from the lion showed the presence of many 

 free spores. It also showed the presence of considerable 

 numbers of Gram-positive bacilli, suggesting B. aero- 

 genes capsulatus. Gram-stained preparations from wolves 

 showed pictures similar to those observed in the lion 

 except that the spore-holding bacilli were more numerous. 

 The findings in the case of supposedly healthy tigers 

 were not essentially different from those in the case of 

 the wolf and lion. In the case of one tiger, suffering 

 from osteomalacia, greatly impaired nutrition, and loss 

 of strength, the microscopical fields derived from several 

 different samples of faeces revealed the presence of im- 

 mense numbers of free spores and smaller numbers of 

 immature Gram-negative spore-holding bacilli. These 

 spores developed into organisms which possessed all 

 the generally known cultural and biochemical characters 

 of B. aerogenes capsulatus, including the ability to develop 



J The method by which these incubation experiments were 

 carried out is explained on p. 84. 



