BIO-CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BACILLI. 77 



complete list of the situations in which organisms belonging 

 to it have been found, but the following short summary 

 will give a general idea of both these sides of the question. 



After the discovery in 1888 by Gaertner, very numerous 

 observers found closely similar, if not identical, bacilli in 

 connection with numerous outbreaks of food poisoning. 

 Recent work bearing on the subject of food poisoning 

 associated with a Gaertner type organism has been done 

 by Durham (1898-1899)/ 3 ) Delepine (1903),^ Pottevin 

 (1905)/ 5 ) Morgan (1905),( 6 > MacOonkey (1906),^ Savage 

 and Gunson (1908),( 8 >Bainbridge (1909, 1911), (9 )MacWeeney 

 (1910).( l0) Ostertag's Handbook of Meat Inspection^ 11 ) gives 

 a good resume of the earlier epidemics and work done up 

 to 1896. A convenient name for such food poisoning bacilli 

 is bacillus enteritidis. 



Organisms have also been found in association with 

 pathological conditions, other than food poisoning, in man, 

 which have ever been relegated to the Gaertner group. 



Nocard( 12) as early as 1892 found organisms associated 

 with a disease in parrots communicable to man, known as 

 Psittacosis, which also belong to the Gaertner group. 

 Gilbert (1895) (13) noted the association with various morbid 

 conditions of bacilli akin to b. coli communis, but showed 

 that some of them differed in particulars which we now 

 know are characteristic broadly speaking of the Gaertner 

 group. The work of Achard and Bensuade (1896), (14) Widal 

 and Nobencourt (1897), (15) still further showed the relation- 

 ship of Gaertner type organisms to disease in man, but it 

 was unquestionably Gwyn (1898), (16) who first recovered an 

 organism definitely Gaertner type from a case clinically 

 typhoid fever. In his case the Widal reaction was negative 

 to b. typhosus down as low as y, whereas the isolated 

 organism was agglutinated up to 2W« The carefully 

 worked out data of this case form the real starting point 



