ALLIED BACILLI. 331 



diseased cow, isolated, not only from the meat but from the spleen of a 

 man who died, a bacillus which presents all the characteristics of the 

 B. typhosus except that it ferments lactose and is veiy pathogenic to 

 animals. In the latter, whatever the method of introduction, there is 

 an intense haemorrhagic enteritis with swelling of the lymph follicles. 

 The distribution of the bacilli varies in different cases, but usually they 

 are present in the solid organs. In man also the symptoms are centred 

 in the intestine, and hence the name given to the bacillus. During 

 recovery a very characteristic point is the occurrence of desquamation. 

 Since it was described by Gaertner others have isolated the bacillus 

 under similar circumstances. Its toxic products have been found to be 

 very pathogenic to animals, and in man cases of illness have occurred 

 when broth made from the diseased flesh has been partaken of. When 

 there is an infection by the bacillus itself being present, symptoms usually 

 begin after twenty-four hours. Many cases, however, of an earlier illness 

 have occurred, no doubt due to the action of toxines already existing 

 in the meat. During the last few years, in some epidemics of meat- 

 poisoning, similar bacilli differing slightly from Gaertner's bacillus have 

 been isolated, e.g. by Durham, and it is probable that here also we have 

 to do not with one variety but with a group of bacilli. 



The Psittacosis Bacillus. When parrots are imported from the 

 tropics in large numbers many die of a septicsemic condition in which 

 an enteritis, it may be hremorrhagic, is a marked feature. There is 

 intense congestion of all the organs and peritoneal ecchymoses. From 

 the spleen, bone marrow, and blood there has been isolated a short 

 actively motile bacillus with rounded ends which does not stain by 

 Gram's method. It grows on all ordinary media, and on potato 

 resembles B. coli. It does not liquefy gelatine, does not ferment 

 lactose, does not curdle milk and gives no indol reaction. The parrot 

 is most susceptible to its action, but it also causes a fatal hsemorrhagic 

 septicaemia in guinea-pigs, rabbits, mice, pigeons and fowls, the bacilli 

 after death being chiefly in the solid organs. From affected parrots 

 the disease appears to be readily communicable to man, chiefly, it 

 is probable, from the feathers being soiled by infective excrement. 

 Several small epidemics have been recognised and investigated in 

 Paris. After about ten days' incubation, headache, fever, anorexia 

 occur, followed by great restlessness, delirium, vomiting, often diarrhoea, 

 and albuminuria. Frequently broncho -pneumonia supervenes and a 

 fatal result has followed in about a third of the cases observed. The 

 organism has been isolated from the blood of the heart. The psittacosis 

 bacillus is evidently one of the typhoid group, a fact which is further 

 borne out by the observation that it is clumped by a typhoid serum 1 : 10 

 (normal serum having no result). The clumping is, however, said to 

 be incomplete, as the bacilli between the clumps may retain their 

 motility. It differs from the typhoid bacillus in its growth on potatoes 

 and in its pathogenicity. 



