3 82 
THOMPSON YATES LABORATORIES REPORT 
Films were made and a short oval bacillus showing polar staining was observed 
in the pus from the local reaction, and in the juice from the spleen and lungs. The 
preparation from the spleen showed only a few organisms, but that from the lungs 
resembled a pure culture. 
No organisms were detected in films made from the blood. 
Pure cultures were obtained from the spleen and from the lungs. The blood 
was found to be sterile. 
A sterile water emulsion of a one day old culture of the organism derived from 
the lung was inoculated into two rats and one guinea pig. One rat was inoculated in 
the thigh with a very minute quantity ; the other two animals subcutaneously beneath 
the skin of the abdomen. The guinea pig died in thirty-six hours. The two rats 
succumbed at about the same time in a little over two days. 
All these animals died of a typical septicaemia, the blood in each case swarming 
with the characteristic organisms. 
With cultures from the blood of these animals 4 stalactites ' were very rapidly 
produced in flasks of broth. 
The interest of the case lies : (i) in its discovery before the occurrence of other 
suspicious cases ; (2) in its apparently complete isolation from the subsequent cases ; 
(3) in the result of the inoculation of the guinea pig, in which, not a septicaemia, but 
a plague pneumonia developed — this was probably due to the fact that a piece of 
the gland was used, and not, as in the other animals, a pure culture of the bacillus. 
