Louping-lll in Slieep. 
553 
This micrococcus has characters which mark it out as a new 
species. The single organisms are spherical, with a diameter of 
about '3/j, but in the abscesses they are usually present in pairs or 
in irregular groups. It grows rapidly at all temperatures between 
70° and 100° F. On slanting agar tubes its cultures have a faint 
yellow tinge, and the colour is deeper but the growth scantier in 
the case of potato cultures. It rapidly liquefies gelatine, and 
deposits at the bottom of the tube a nearly colourless precipitate. 
When cultivated in milk the latter becomes coagulated. It excites 
suppuration when injected under the skin of the rabbit or guinea- 
pig, but only an inflammatory swelling, which disappears without 
the formation of an abscess, in the horse and ox. 
Pathology of Loupistg-Ill. 
In the face of the experiments described above it will hardly be 
doubted by anyone that the micrococcus was the actual cause of 
disease in the cases in which it was found (II. and V.). In each of 
these two cases, it will be remembered, there was discovered an 
abscess, which apparently had its origin in one of the bones of the 
vertebral column, but which involved also the coverings of the spinal 
cord. The lambs suffered from paralysis, and the abscess in each case 
offered a perfectly satisfactory explanation of this symptom. It is 
true that in none of the animals subcutaneously inoculated with 
cultures of the organism did paralysis set in, but that in no way 
invalidates the claim that the disease excited by the injection of 
the cultures and that present in the original lambs (Cases II. and Y.) 
were identical in their nature. The paralysis in the natural cases 
was in a sense an accident depending upon the situation of the 
abscess, and it is not at all unlikely that cases perfectly identical as 
regards their nature pass undetected or end in recovery when 
the abscesses are situated in the muscular system, the lungs, the 
spleen, or the liver. On the other hand, it is very probable that by 
injecting cultures of this organism into the veins of young lambs, so 
as to insure the transport of the germs by the blood stream, and 
thus bring about a chance of their becoming arrested in one of the 
bones of the spinal column, cases identical, as regards the symptoms, 
with II. and V. would be produced. 
In Case I. also, the paralysis was fully explained by the abscess 
discovered in connexion with the spinal cord, and, although the 
strict proof was not led, owing to the failui’e to cultivate the bacilli 
present in the pus, it is hardly open to doubt that these bacilli were 
the cause of the disease. 
It may therefore be said that in twenty per cent, of the cases 
examined, the. post-mortem examination afforded a complete explana- 
tion of the symptoms, and showed that the disease was bacterial as 
regards its cause. But in the remaining cases (with the exception 
of Nos. VI. and XII. which were probably cases of the so-called 
‘ sickness ’) the exact nature of the disease is not so clear. 
In Cases IV. VII. XI. XIII. and XV. the fourth stomach 
