BACTERIA IN ARTICLES OF FOOD. 671 
The researches of Foster (1889) show that the typhoid bacillus, 
the pus cocci, the tubercle bacillus, and the bacillus of swine plague 
resist the action of a saturated solution of salt for weeks and even for 
months; and the same observer found that the ordinary processes of 
salting and smoking did not destroy the tubercle bacillus in the flesh 
of a cow which had succumbed to tuberculosis. Beu has made cul- 
tures from a large number of specimens of fresh, salted, and smoked 
meats and fish, with the general result that the fresh and salted meats 
were found to contain a limited number of bacteria of various species, 
and that smoking for several days did not insure the destruction of 
these microdrganisms. In specimens of sausage six days’ smoking 
did not destroy a liquefying bacillus which was present, but at the 
end of six weeks’ exposure to smoke this bacillus no longer grew, 
while a non-liquefying bacillus present in the same specimen had not 
been destroyed. Fourteen days’ smoking sufficed to destroy all the 
microérganisms in a specimen of bacon, but this was not sufficient 
for the interior portions of a ham. Among the bacteria obtained by 
Beu from smoked meats he mentions the following: Staphylococcus 
cereus albus, Proteus vulgaris, Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, Ba- 
cillus liquefaciens viridis, etc. The number of colonies which de- 
veloped from a fragment, the size of a mustard seed to that of a flax- 
seed, taken from the interior of the meats examined, was usually 
small; and the presence of a few scattered bacteria of these common 
species has no significance from a sanitary point of view, except as 
showing that pathogenic bacteria may survive in infected meats after 
they have been exposed to the usual processes of salting and smoking. 
Petri, in experiments upon the bacillus of swine plague (Schweine- 
rothlauf), arrived at the following results : 
The flesh of swine which died of this disease preserved its infec- 
tious properties after having been preserved in brine for several 
months, and the same flesh salted or pickled for a month and then 
smoked for fourteen days contained the rothlauf bacillus in a living 
and unattenuated condition. At the end of three months virulent 
rothlauf bacilli were still obtained from a smoked ham, but they were 
no longer found at the end of six months. 
Schrank (1888) has made cultures from both the albumin and the 
yolk of fresh eggs, and finds that they are free from bacteria. He 
thinks that, as a rule, putrefactive bacteria obtain access to the inte- 
rior through injured places in the shell, although exceptionally the 
egg may be infected with them in the oviduct of the fowl. The usual 
bacteria concerned in the putrefactive changes in eggs are, according 
to the author mentioned, a variety of Proteus vulgaris and Bacillus 
fluorescens putidus. 
Zérkendorfer (1893) has cultivated from rotten eggs sixteen dif- 
