TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 651 
The symptoms were severe dyspnoea, with great rapidity of respiration 
coming on within a couple of hours after injection, and followed by 
purging and collapse, with fall of temperature to 97°. Dogs appeared 
to be immune, and also guinea-pigs—at any rate, to infection by the mouth. 
2. The bacillus has a special predilection for the muscular tissue, and 
can always be isolated from it. Portions of muscle from infected rats and 
mice communicate the disease to their cage-mates. 
3. The bacillus spreads with great rapidity through normal cooked 
meat. This was tested by placing some of the culture on a slice of cold 
roast beef, on the top of which were laid a number of other slices, and 
the whole left to stand till next day at room temperature, when the 
bacilli were found to have spread through a layer of beef between five and six 
inches thick. 
4. The bacilli of the Gaertner group comprise, in addition to true 
Gaertner, the Aertryk bacillus, paratyphoid bacillus, and Ratin, which is 
used for the extermination of rats. After an extensive series of parallel 
cultures on the several coloured substrata which have been suggested for 
the detection and differentiation of bacilli of this group, the author was 
unable to differentiate between them culturally. Neither on Drigalski, 
Endo, McConkey, Conradi, Fawcus’s modification of Conradi, nor on 
Werbitzki’s new china-green medium was he able to detect any constant 
cultural difference between these organisms. 
5. An important practical outcome of this identity is that it is not 
safe to lay down Ratin for the destruction of vermin in places where the 
rats which it is proposed to destroy have access to human food. 
6. Agglutination tests carried out with the serum of the patients in 
this case, and also with high potential sera, some made by the writer and 
some obtained from the Lister Institute through the courtesy of Dr. C. J. 
Martin, F.R.S., and Drs. McConkey and Bainbridge, have shown a close 
serological relation between the strain of Gaertner isolated in this case, 
and typhoid. The relation with paratyphoid bacillus and Ratin is less 
close. Whether it is really possible, by means of agglutination reactions 
to differentiate between the individual races or strains of the Gaertner group 
seems to me doubtful. 
7. Inasmuch as in the vast majority of cases infection with these bacilli 
takes place before the death of the animal, and manifests itself clinically 
by various septic and suppurative processes, it is absolutely essential, 
in the interest of the public health, that no carcase should be exposed for 
sale or sent in on contract to a public institution that has not been 
slaughtered in a public abattoir and subjected to skilled inspection and, 
in suspicious cases, to bacteriological examination, which can be quickly 
and satisfactorily carried out by malachite-green enrichment. Old scraps 
of meat left over for several days need thorough and prolonged cooking 
to free them from danger. 
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1. 
The following Papers and Report were read :— 
1. Chloroform Anesthesia with known Percentage of Vapour 
Demonstration. By Dr. N. H. Aucocx. 
2. Discussion on the Nucleus. 
3. Fourth Report on the Effect of Climate upon Health and Disease. 
See Reports, p. 319. 
