EDITORIAL. 
187 
>y au affected animal to his neighbors ? Does he constitute a danger for those 
pho have the care of him ? Can a man contract actinomycosis from diseased 
nimals, as he does in cases of glanders, or rabies, as he receives it in 
9 
phthous fever, trichinosis, or even tuberculosis? Evidently, the question is not 
et solved; but it can be said that if actinomycosis is contagious, it is so only in 
degree so slight that the danger of contagion may be considered as a neglige - 
ble factor. It is in the country where the disease is the rarest that such a ques- 
ion can be most usefully studied. In France, for instance, each veterinarian 
ees now and then a few cases of actinomycosis of the jaw. These cases remain 
lways isolated, though the animals live and associate with others for years. 
Actinomycosis of the jaw has no effect upon the general habit of the subject; 
s long as the slow progress of the disease has not involved the dental alveola , or 
oosened the teeth from their sockets, and the animals live , eat, work, fatten 
nd give milk as much and as well as their neighbors. But whatever may be the 
uration of the sojou/rn in the same barns, no matter how intimate the contacts 
nth all animals may have been, never has the disease been seen affecting other ani¬ 
mals ; and yet from time to time the actinomycotic tumor has been seen to soften 
nd ulcerate, and through existing and persistent fistulous tracts permit the escape 
f pus loaded with parasites. Yet, still, I repeat no case of direct contagion has 
et become known * 
Besides it is known with what difficulty experimental actinomycosis can 
e obtained ; whatever may have been the mode of inoculation, or the quantity 
f inoculating matter employed, or whether obtained from pure cultures or from 
resh lesions, the result is always negative. Some authors have succeeded in 
living rise to the development of tumors in animals which had received into the 
•eritoneum fragments more or less voluminous of actinomycomes ; but the in¬ 
flation by series has always failed, and, as the result, one is brought to the 
onclusion that to reproduce itself de novo in an animal organism the germ must 
erhaps pass through a different media. We know nothing of the evolutive pe- 
iod of the disease, but it is an allowable supposition that the vegetates, through 
phich the introduction into the organism occurs, not only act as a vehicle of 
ntroduction, but that they probably furnish a necessary or perhaps simply use- 
ill substitute for an unknown phase of its evolution. 
Should this hypothesis be admitted, the comparative history of this affection 
pill be better understood ; it is easily explained how, out of seventy-five oper¬ 
ations of human actinomycosis counted by Moosbrugger, he could discover but 
single patient who had been in contact with animals affected with tumors of 
he jaw, while in forty-nine cases they were found in persons whose vocations did 
ot require their proximity to affected cattle. 
The conclusion which imposes itself is that the source of infection is the 
ame for both men and animals, and that in all appearances gramineous sub- 
tances have served as vehicles for the introduction of the parasite. 
In many of the cases of human actinomycosis where the cause has been 
raced it was in persons having thoughtlessly chewed or swallowed particles of 
traws or ears, or grains of wheat or rye. In the elucidation of the saprophitic 
* The italics are ours.—E d. 
