562 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
at the end of six weeks, and at the post-mortem inspection ample evidence 
of M. melitensis infection was available in the recovery of the organism 
from the spleen in all four goats, and in three of them from other organs 
as well ; but the point of interest to be noted in this experiment is the 
relationship that exists between the size of the dose of infective material 
to the date of onset of signs of infection. Thus the first two goats, which 
received 10 and 1 million cocci respectively, gave evidence of reaction to 
the infection by the appearance of specific agglutinins in the blood within 
a week of inoculation, and a full ten days earlier than the other two goats, 
which had each received less than a million cocci. 
No. of Goat. 
No. of Cocci 
Injected. 
Serum Reaction. 
Titre of 
Serum at 
44 days. 
Day of First 
Appearance. 
Titre. 
No. 10 
10,000,000 
7 
1 : 20 
1 : 200 
„ 9 
1,000,000 
7 
1 : 20 
1 : 100 
„ 5 
100,000 
17 
1 : 20 
1 : 20 
„ 4 
10,000 
17 
1 : 10 
1 : 20 
Cutaneous Infection . — The suspicion that had been aroused in my mind 
with reference to the probability of infection being carried from goat to 
goat by way of the goatherds’ hands when soiled with infective milk was 
strengthened by the knowledge that such a comparatively small amount of 
infective material as that just mentioned injected subcutaneously was 
sufficient to produce infection. 
The technique adopted by the Maltese goatherd closely resembles 
that of his English confrere, and consists in lubricating his own hands and 
the outside of the goat’s udder with some of the foremilk. When a number 
of goats have to be milked in rapid succession, the lubricant obtained from 
the first goat will serve for perhaps some half-dozen goats ; with the seventh 
goat a fresh supply of milk is taken for the same purpose, and so on. Now 
given that goat No. 1 or goat No. 7 is passing M. melitensis in its milk, 
it is obvious that at any rate goat No. 2 or goat No. 8 stands a very 
good chance of becoming infected by a process of subcutaneous inocula- 
tion ; I therefore investigated the possibility of this occurrence in the 
following manner. 
A healthy female goat, nearly full grown, was selected, cast on an 
operating table, and securely held by assistants. A fairly large area of 
skin over the left mammary gland was shaved somewhat roughly, in such 
