INFLUENCE OF DISEASE UPON MILK 117 
isms. At the time of abortion the udder secretion fre- 
quently assumes the characteristics of colostrum. 
When injected into guinea pigs or fed to them, milk 
containing the abortion bacillus produces proliferative 
changes similar to those caused by the tubercle bacillus. 
The organism is also pathogenic for animals of several 
other species. This widespread pathogenicity and its 
frequent occurrence in milk suggested the desirability 
of investigations to determine if the organism was con- 
cerned in the sclerotic changes occurring in the organs 
and tissues of man and the domestic animals. Mohler 
and Traum inoculated guinea pigs with material from 
twenty-eight tonsils and adenoids from milk-consuming 
children. The material from two of the tonsils produced 
lesions in three guinea pigs, but the Bacillus abortus was 
recovered only from the lesions in one of these animals. 
Whether the organism was actually responsible for the 
change in the tonsil or whether it merely happened to 
be lodged on the surface could not be determined. 
Schroeder also made a number of similar tests, all with 
negative results. Mohler tested the blood serum of 
twenty-five persons with the complement fixation and 
agglutination tests and obtained negative results in all 
cases, while Larsen and Sedgwick, in applying the com- 
plement fixation test to the blood serum from 425 chil- 
dren, obtained 78 positive reactions (17 per cent.). 
Ramsey tested the blood of 116 children in the same 
manner, but the reaction was positive in only seven cases. 
Nicholl and Pratt obtained positive reactions with the 
agglutination test on the blood serum of several children. 
No definite statement can be made as to whether the anti- 
