52 Bulletin No. 207. 



rabbits and swine, and of the unthreshed forage to goats, sheep 

 and a cow for a number of weeks produced no noticeable change 

 in the health of these animals. 



Various aerobic organisms isolated from the oats were cul- 

 tivated on serum agar, plain agar, Uschinsky's medium and 

 bouillon and administered to both large and small animals. The 

 feeding of Monascus purpureus (Went) 2 and B. coli 3 species 

 isolated from this forage, to horses, has been mentioned else- 

 where. While a majority of the aerobic organisms from this 

 feed proved to be saprophytic and apparently of no conse- 

 quence, the result of injecting a Gram-negative aerobic rod 4 

 into horses and mules suggested a pathogenic property. Death 

 frequently occurred in these animals following the daily intro- 

 duction per os and per rectum of large quantities of the broth 

 culture of this organism, or of the sterile nitrate in Uschinsky's 

 medium, administered intravenously. Small laboratory animals 

 proved non-susceptible. *. 



A study of the anaerobic organisms found in the oats in 

 question was undertaken, but organisms of a pathogenic nature 

 wf-re propagated with difficulty upon the media first employed. 

 Numerous anaerobes isolated from the oats caused no manifes- 

 tations upon being fed or injected into horses, guinea pigs and 

 rabbits. In this connection the observations of Buckley and 

 Shippen 5 upon the effect of administering B. botulinus of re- 

 mote origin to a donkey and to horses are of interest. Their 

 experiments established quite definitely the pathogenicity of 

 this anaerobe for these animals. Furthermore, it was observed 

 that the clinical manifestations in infected horses, as well as the 

 gross anatomic alterations upon autopsy, presented a clinical and 

 gross anatomic analogy to the fatal disease in Iforses and mules 

 commonly termed forage poisoning. They (Buckley and Ship- 

 pen) report the feeding of liberal amounts of B. botulinus to 

 chickens without noticeable effect. The naturally voided f eces of 

 these infected fowls, disguised in wholesome feed and fed to a 



8 Jour. Comp. Patho. and Thera., Sept., 1915, 28, No. 3, pp. 185-190. 

 8 Jour. Bact., 1916, 1, No. 1, p. 115. 



4 Jour. Infect. Dis., 1916, 19, pp. 385-394; Jour. Amer. Vet. Med. Ass'n, 

 1917, 51, New Series 4, No. 2, pp. 164-187. 



6 Jour. Amer. Vet. Med. Ass'n, 1917, 50, New Series 3, No. 7, pp. 



