442 A MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY 



THE PARATYPHOID GARTNER GROUP 

 Epidemic Food Poisoning 



In 1888 Gartner investigated an outbreak of epidemic meat 

 poisoning at Jena, and isolated an organism known as the 

 B. enteritidis or Gartner bacillus. The organism resembles the 

 typhoid bacillus in morphology and motility, and is Gram- 

 negative. The cultures on agar and gelatin resemble those of the 

 typhoid bacillus, and, like the latter, it forms little or no indole, 

 may be recoverable from the blood and faeces, and the blood 

 serum of the patient frequently agglutinates the organism. It 

 differs from the typhoid bacillus by fermenting glucose with gas 

 productions and in rendering litmus milk alkaline after a transient 

 acidity ; the fermentation reactions are given in the table, p. 450. 

 Serologically it is also quite distinct from the typhoid bacillus. 

 When recently isolated, the B. enteritidis is virulent for -mice, 

 guinea-pigs and rabbits by inoculation, and may be so for mice by 

 feeding. 



The same type of organism was subsequently recovered from 

 numerous outbreaks of food-poisoning (see Chapter XXI.), the 

 salient features of which are acute gastro -enteritis, vomiting, 

 diarrhoea, collapse, etc. It was also found to be present in, or to 

 cause, certain animal diseases. These various forms may now be 

 considered. 



In swine fever (hog-cholera of the Americans), an organism, 

 B. suipestifer (B. cholercv suis), was long known to be present in a 

 considerable proportion of cases, and was for a time regarded as 

 the causative organism of the disease. It was shown, however, 

 by de Schweinitz and Dorset that swine fever is caused by a filter 

 passer, and the B. suipestifer is, therefore, a secondary or terminal 

 infectant. Swine fever is a disease of swine, very infectious, and 

 characterised by an enteritis with lesions in the bowel much like 

 those of human typhoid fever ; pneumonia is also present in some 

 of the cases. 1 



In 1898 de Nobele isolated from an outbreak of epidemic food- 

 poisoning at Aertrycke, Belgium, a bacillus, known &&B. aertrycke* 

 allied to the Gartner bacillus, and bacilli of this type have since 

 been isolated from a number of food-poisoning outbreaks. The 



1 TJhlenhuth, Journ. Inst. Pub. Health,, 191 1. 



