B. ENTERITIDIS SPOROGENES. 355 



on milk, and it is by this medium that isolation can be best effected. A small 

 quantity of the material suspected to contain the bacillus is placed in 15 to 

 20 c.c. of sterile milk, which is then heated for ten minutes at 80° C. to destroy 

 all vegetative bacteria; the tube is cooled, placed under anaerobic conditions, 

 and incubated at 37° C. for from twenty-four to thirty-six hours. If the 

 bacillus be present there is abundant gas formation, and almost complete 

 separation of the curd from the whey takes place. The former adheres to the 

 sides of the tube in shreds, and large masses gather with the cream on the top- 

 of the fluid, all being torn by the gas evolved. The whey is only slightly 

 turbid and contains numerous bacilli. The growth has an odour of butyric 

 acid. If a small quantity (say i c.c.) of the whey be injected into a guinea- 

 pig, the animal becomes ill in a few hours and dies in twenty-four hours. At 

 the point of inoculation the skin and subcutaneous tissues, and sometimes 

 even the subjacent muscles, are green and gangrenous and evil-smelling, there 

 is considerable oedema, and there may also be gas formation. The exudation 

 is crowded with bacilli, which, however, are not generally distributed in any 

 numbers throughout the body. These pathogenic properties of the bacillus 

 enteritidis sporogenes are important in its recognition, for its culture reactions 

 taken alone are very similar to those of the bacillus butyricus of Botkin. 



Not a few American and Continental workers exhibit some hesitancy in 

 accepting the status of B. enteritidis sporogenes as established by Klein ; for 

 his published descriptions are not free from the suspicion of the existence of 

 cultural impurities involved in the technique employed. In fact, excepting 

 the presence of motility and flagella, the above description corresponds closely 

 to that of B. aerogenes capsulatus (Welch), and cultures of B. enteritidis 

 sporogenes received at the Pathological Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins 

 University, through the courtesy of Dr. Klein, agreed in every detail to pure 

 cultures of B. aerogenes capsulatus (Welch), previously described by Welch 

 and Nuttall. 



