456 Veterinary Medicine. 



valuable hints as to the lines of inquiry that may be followed 

 with the best hope of reaching definite results. 



Since the publication of the ist edition Iyignieres has advanced 

 the doctrine of microbian origin. A Percheron, after two days 

 of idleness, went to work at 10 P. M., was attacked at i A. M., 

 and died at 3 A. M. Culture inoculations made from his blood, 

 spleen, liver, kidney, bone marrow, myelon, and subarachnoid 

 fluid from the loins to the bulb proved sterile, while that from 

 the subarachnoid fluid on a level with the bulb yielded a rich 

 growth of streptococcus that appeared to the naked eye as small 

 granules. It proved aerobic and anaerobic, stained in Gram's 

 (I) solution, coagulated milk acidifying it, showed small round 

 grayish-white colonies on peptonized gelatine, without liquefying 

 it, failed to grow on potato, but grew well in serum and bouillon. 



Two or three drops proved fatal to mice, producing, when 

 thrown into the peritoneum, a highly acute parenchymatous 

 nephritis with bloody urine. Very few microbes were found in 

 the kidney. There was loss of control of the hind limbs and ex- 

 treme nervous irritability. 



Intravenous injection of 300 cc. of the culture in a powerful 

 stallion produced hyperthemia, 102 ° F. on the second day, 104 

 on the third, 105 on the fourth, paraplegia on the sixth, and 

 death on the seventh. 



A second horse which received 150 cc. was sick for several 

 days, without paraplegia, then appeared to recover ; but three 

 weeks later he became paraplegia, with albuminous urine and died 

 next day. 



In neither of the horses was the urine sanguineous. 



The Guineapig succumbed to intraperitoneal inoculation and 

 the rabbit to intravenous. Carnivora, swine, ruminants and 

 birds proved immune. 



It is to be noted that the two inoculated failed to show hsemo- 

 globinuria which characterizes all violent and fatal cases that 

 occur casually. The streptococcus is therefore probably an acci- 

 dental complication of this case and not the specific cause of the 

 familiar hsemoglobinaemia. It may have been a predisposing 

 cause in Iyignieres' Percheron, debilitating the nervous system 

 and rendering it specially susceptible to the real cause, so that 

 the case proved rapidly fatal. 



