INFECTIONS OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT 123 



ducts in the urine. On the other hand, material from 

 persons whose stools contain an abundance of capsulatus 

 (including a large proportion of persons suffering from 

 "primary" pernicious ansemia) induces with great 

 regularity the peculiar alterations in incubated rabbits 

 which have been already described. The short period 

 of time (four to six hours) which is required to bring 

 about the liberation of gas in the liver is a point worthy 

 of notice. 



The distribution of B. aerogenes capsulatus in the 

 bodies of rabbits that have been subjected to the incu- 

 bation test is a matter of some interest. Where normal 

 rabbits are employed for this test one finds large num- 

 bers of the gas-bacillus in the liver and often considerable 

 numbers in the heart's blood. One finds also moderate 

 or considerable numbers of the bacilli in the spleen, 

 where they have doubtless been arrested owing to me- 

 chanical conditions. In the brain, in the suprarenals, 

 in the kidneys, and in other organs, one finds very few 

 gas-bacilli. One may experimentally change somewhat 

 the distribution of these organisms if previous to the 

 injection and killing of the rabbit the animal be fed oh 

 large quantities of dextrose say twenty grams daily for 

 three days. Under these conditions, if the inoculation 

 test be carried out, it will be found that not only do 

 the liver and blood contain much larger numbers of gas- 

 bacilli than is ordinarily the case, but the spleen also con- 

 tains great numbers of the same organism. Moreover, 

 the spleen which in normal rabbits gives no gas, will be 

 found to contain numerous bubbles of gas and therefore 



