134 
FRANK S. BILLINGS. 
break at Crete, Neb., which 1 have termed “Bovine Rabies,” on 
account of the history given me, and also because the phenomena 
in the sick animals so exactly fitted into the descriptions of rabies 
in cattle as given in the most reliable text books on animal dis¬ 
eases. [See American Veterinary Review, January and Febru¬ 
ary, 1887 .] I can only say this, that if the disease was not rabies, 
then it is one that simulates it in every particular, and one never 
before described by any observer. The fact that 1 have been able 
to isolate one form of micro-organismal life in absolutely pure 
cultivations from the brain, spleen and parotid glands of these 
animals, makes me doubtful of its being rabies, because so many 
others have tried to do the same thing and obtained no experi¬ 
mental results. On the contrary, I have obtained a most singu¬ 
lar result, which, summed up, is as follows: Dogs inoculated 
subcutaneously with four fluid grammes of a sterilized bouillon 
culture, have died within two weeks from a general paralysis, be¬ 
ginning in the posterior extremities. One rat died under the 
same symptoms in exactly nine days from the time it was inocu¬ 
lated. In both cases the animals could not swallow ; the mucosa 
of the stomach was injected and swollen and intestinal tract con¬ 
tracted. Further particulars I cannot give at present, and it 
would be useless to theorize upon them. 
This microphyte undoubtedly belongs to the same species as 
that of swine plague, if such objects can be classed by their mor¬ 
phological and morpho-biological characteristics so far as artificial 
development is concerned. I shall show, however, that these 
characteristics are not enough to justify claiming identity for any 
two organisms that are apparently similar, and that the one decis¬ 
ive test must be the experimental results in animals being exactly 
the same as occurs in natural infection. 
This organism has, as said, nearly every characteristic of that 
of swine plague in artificial cultivations, but it is much more diffi¬ 
cult to keep it in an active state of extra organismal proliferation. 
When the cultures are fresh and one sees it in its mature form, 
it is slightly longer than the swine plague organism and has more 
non-refracting, non-coloring substance; it is also somewhat thinner, 
and the refracting, colorable pole-ends are not only smaller, but 
