PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 81 
ber 18th, the injections of emulsions of the kidneys and 
spleens of four specimens of KH. norvegicus, caught in 
proximity to the monkey cages, into four guinea-pigs, were 
likewise without results. Thus there is no evidence that 
our local rats harbour this parasite. 
Rat-bite Fever. 
For some years a peculiar disease in man, follow- 
ing on bites by rats, has been known under this 
designation. Blake has given a full description of 
the disease on which the remaining part of this paragraph 
is based. In Japan, which has furnished most of the cases, 
it is known as “‘Sokodu.’’ The original wound having 
healed, after an incubation period of a few days to a month, 
the part becomes again inflamed. Systemic symptoms 
follow, and the patient’s condition may become grave. A 
characteristic rash may be present. If the patient recover 
from the first bout of fever, the disease may assume a re- 
lapsing form, and be prolonged for months and even, it is 
said, for years. 
The disease may be conveyed to guinea-pigs by making 
rats bite them. Recently Japanese workers have found 
spirochetes in healthy rats, in human beings bitten by rats 
and suffering from the disease, and in monkeys and guinea- 
pigs infected in the laboratory. Futaki, Takaki, Tangigu- 
chi and Osumi’? have designated this organism as Spiro- 
cheta morsus muris—but as trinominals are inadmissible, 
except to indicate a variety of a species, 1.e., a sub-species, 
Sp. morsus-muris should be adopted. 
“No eases of this disease have as yet been recorded for 
Australia. I have, however, heard of a child in Sydney 
who recently was bitten by a cat, a prolonged illness re- 
'Biake, J. of Exp. Med., XXiII., 1, p. 39, quoted in C’ wealth of 
Aust., Quart. Service Public, No. 8, p. 26. 
* Journ. of Exp. Med., 1917, XXV, pp. 33-44. 
F—May J, 1918 
