514 BACILLI WHICH PRODUCE SEPTICAMIA 
for all known spores have a much greater resisting power to heat 
and the chemical agents named. 
Pathogenesis.—Pathogenic for swine, rabbits, white mice, house 
mice, pigeons, and sparrows. Field mice, guinea-pigs, and chickens 
are immune. 
Swine may be infected by the ingestion of food containing the 
rothlauf bacillus, as has been demonstrated by allowing them to eat 
the intestine of an animal which had recently succumbed to the dis- 
ease, and also by the subcutaneous injection of pure cultures. The 
disease usually terminates fatally within three or four days, and 
sometimes in less than twenty-four hours. It is characterized by 
Fie. 137.—Section of diaphragm of a mouse dead from mouse septicemia, showing bacilli in a 
capillary blood vessel. (Baumgarten.) 
fever, debility, loss of appetite, and by the appearance upon the sur- 
face of the body of red patches, which gradually extend and become 
confluent, producing after a time a uniform dark-red or brown color 
of the entire surface. The discharges from the bowels frequently 
contain bloody mucus. At the autopsy, in acute cases, the spleen is 
notably enlarged, and the liver and kidneys are likely to be more or 
less swollen, as are also the lymphatic glands, especially those of 
the mesentery; the gastric and intestinal mucous membranes are 
usually inflamed and spotted with hemorrhagic extravasations ; the 
serous membranes also may be inflamed, and the cavities of the 
pleure, pericardium, and peritoneum usually contain more or less 
fluid. The bacilli are found in the blood vessels throughout the 
body and are especially numerous in the interior of the leucocytes. 
