BACILLUS BOTULINUS 475 



dead in utero. It has been found in the blood before death, by Gwyn/ 

 in a case of chorea. The bacillus has also been found in infectious 

 processes of various other parts of the body, such as the gastrointes- 

 tinal and biliary tracts, the lungs, the pleura, and the meninges. 



As stated above, this bacillus is frequently present in the normal 

 intestinal contents. Its presence in abnormally high proportions, as 

 indicated by a Gram stain of a smear of the feces, has been associated 

 by a number of observers with various pathological conditions. Herter ^ 

 has recently studied this subject and believes that the abnormal prohf- 

 eration of the bacillus in the gastrointestinal tract has in some way 

 (probably by toxin absorption) an etiological relationship to pernicious 

 anemia. This assertion, however, can in no way be regarded as 

 conclusively proven. 



BACILLUS BOTULINUS 



Meat poisoning was formerly regarded as universally dependent upon 

 putrefactive changes taking place in infected meat, resulting in the 

 production of ptomains or other harmful products of bacterial putre- 

 faction. It was not until 1888 that certain of these cases were definitely 

 recognized as true bacterial infections, in which the preformed poison 

 probably aided only in establishing the infection. Gartner, in that 

 year, discovered the Bacillus enteritidis, a microorganism belonging to 

 the group of the paracolon bacilli, and demonstrated its presence both 

 in the infecting meat and in the intestinal tracts of patients. The char- 

 acteristics of this type of meat poisoning have been discussed more 

 particularly in the section describing the bacillus of Gartner and its 

 allied forms. 



There is another type of meat poisoning, however, which is not only 

 much more severe (ending fatally in almost 25 per cent of the cases) , but 

 is characterized by a clinical picture more significant of a profound 

 systemic toxemia than of a mere gastroenteric irritation. The etio- 

 logical factor underlying this type of infection was first demonstrated 

 by van Ermengem,' in 1896, and named Bacillus botulinus. van 

 Ermengem isolated the bacillus from a ham, the ingestion of which 

 had caused disease in a large number of persons. Of the thirty-four 

 individuals who had eaten of it, all were attacked, about ten of them 



1 Qwyn, Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., x, 1899. 



2 Herter, " Bacteriallnfection of the Intestinal Tract," New York, Macmillan, 1907. 

 = van Ermengem, Cent. f. Bakt., xix, 1896; Zeit. f. Hyg., xxvi, 1897. 



