Actinomycosis. Lumpy-Jaw. 39 



of roundish sharply defined cells. Under 300 diameters there 

 appear numerous micrococci with filaments enlarged at their free 

 extremity. The surrounding muscle is discolored, softened, 

 infiltrated with liquid, and repulsive. Hertwig who considered it 

 as a distinct species found that infection was usually received in 

 summer and autumn. PfeifEer believed it to be a protozoan in- 

 fection. 



Actinomyces Infection in Man. The human being is ex- 

 -j^osed to nearly all of the causes which prove factors for infection 

 in herbivora. The disease prevails largely in the same districts, 

 and tends to start from wounds, or from sores of the gums in 

 connection with dentition or carious teeth. It has also been fre- 

 quently observed in persons working in the country among grain 

 or fodder, or in cities in connection with grain. It has been 

 plausibly charged on the habit of chewing grain or straw, or of 

 picking the teeth with the latter. Still further barley awns, and 

 glumes, and pieces of straw have been found in such cases in the 

 holtows of the decayed teeth, in the follicles of the tonsils, and 

 even in the actinomycotic fistulae at a distance from the external 

 opening. Soltman found in an actinomycotic fistula beneath the 

 scapula a barley awn which was believed to have entered at the 

 pharynx and advanced with the progress of the actinomycosis to 

 the point where it was found. Ducer describes a case of maxillary 

 actinomycosis in a woman who had learned to clean her teeth 

 with grain. Buzzi found in an actinomycosis of the neck a straw 

 which had manifestly advanced from the point of infection in a 

 decayed tooth. Ruge found organisms resembling actinomyces 

 in four out of twenty-five tonsils examined, but similar objects 

 are occasionally found in decayed teeth and their true nature is 

 still uncertain. Hummel found one case with a piece of oat chaff 

 in contact with the diseased mass, having evidently penetrated 

 through the buccal mucous membrane. These are in keeping 

 with Jensen's epizootic in pigs said to have been caused by feed- 

 ing on rye grown in the polders reclaimed from the sea in Zeeland, 

 with Johne's discovery of actinomyces on rye imbedded in the 

 follicles of pig's tonsils, and of Piana's case of lingual actinomy- 

 cosis in the cow caused by a barley awn. Still more striking is 

 the experiment of Korsak who inserted many wheat beards under 

 the skin of the neck and shoulder of a yearling calf, and later 



