332 Gaseous Edema 



bacilli. If the animal be permitted to remain undisturbed for some 

 time after death, the bacilli spread to the circulatory system and reach 

 all the organs. 



Brieger and Ehrlich* have reported 2 cases of malignant edema 

 in man. Both occurred in typhoid fever patients subcutaneously 

 injected with musk, the infection no doubt resulting from impurities 

 in the therapeutic agent. 



Grigorjeff and Ukkef have observed another interesting case of 

 typhoid fever with intestinal ulcerations, through which infection 

 by the bacillus of malignant edema took place. The case was 

 characterized by interstitial emphysema of the subcutaneous tissue 

 of the neck and breast, gas bubbles in the muscles, and a transforma- 

 tion of the entire liver into a spongy porous mass of a grayish-brown 

 color. The spleen was enlarged and soft, and contained a few gas- 

 bubbles. Though the writers consider this organism to be the bacillus 

 of malignant edema, the general impression one receives from the 

 description of the lesions suggests that it was Welch's Bacillus 

 aerogenes capsulatus. 



Immunity. — Cornevin found that the passage of the bacillus 

 through white rats diminished its virulence, and that the animals 

 of various species that recovered were immune against subsequent 

 infection with the virulent organisms. Roux and Chamberlandj: 

 found that the filtered cultures were toxic and that animals could be 

 immunized by injection with this toxic filtrate. 



GASEOUS EDEMA 



m 



Bacillus Aerogenes Capsulatus (Welch) 



General Characteristics. — A large, stout, non-motile, non-flagellate, sporogen- 

 ous, non-chromogenic, purely anaerobic, markedly aerogenic, doubtfully patho- 

 genic bacillus, easily cultivated in artificial media, readily stained by the ordinary 

 methods and by Gram's method. 



This disease is caused by an interesting micro-organism described 

 by Welch, and subsequently studied by Welch and Nuttall,§ Welch 

 and Flexner,||and others. Welch said at the meeting of the Society 

 of American Bacteriologists held at Philadelphia, December 30, 1904, 

 that he believed this organism to be identical with Kline's Bacillus 

 enteritidis sporogenes,**and that it belongs to the butyric acidgroup. 

 It is probably also identical with Bacillus phlegmone emphysematose 

 of Frankel.ft In many systematic writings the organism is now 

 called Bacillus welchii. English writers identify it with Bacillus 



*" Berliner klin. Wochenschrift," 1882, No. 44. 



t " Militar-medizin. Jour.," 1898, p. 323. 



j "Ann. de I'Inst. Pasteur," 1887. 



§ Bull, of the Johns Hopkins Hospital," July and Aug., 1892, vol. viii. No. 24. 



I "Jour, of Experimental Medicine," Jan., 1896, vol. i. No. i, p. 6. 

 ** Centralbl. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenk, 1895, xviii, 737. 

 tt "Centralbl. f. Bakt.," etc., Bd. xm, p. 13. 



