ETIOLOGICAL MOMENT IN AMERICAN SWINE PLAGUE. 135 
more pointed ; it presents all the difficulties of study that the 
swine plague organism does, but to a greater degree, because it 
thrives so poorly in all tested media; it is especially prone to 
what in these cases I call coccoid degeneration. It is an-and 
aerobic in gelatine, but does not form the isolated colonies in old, 
or other, gelatine along the line of puncture in any stage of its 
development. In contradistinction to the S. P. organism, it 
spreads very slowly over the surface of the gelatine, forming a 
dead-looking, non-lustrous crust, especially if the gelatine is not 
very fresh, which is very difficult of removal, requiring hard 
scraping with the wire to get any material, and then breaks up 
into small dry, crustaceous particles. It developes well on agar 
agar at 37° C., but the organism will be found very much dwarfed 
upon microscopic examination, except in freshly-sown cultures 
made immediately from the organ from a diseased animal. In 
old cultures, or after repeated cultivations, the latter will be 
found to consist almost entirely of coccoid objects of varying 
dimensions. Its best medium is sterilized blood serum. It does 
not cause the gelatine to become fluid. It colors best in fuchsin 
and well in the blues and blue-violets, but not well in the red- 
violets. Want of means has prevented the careful experimental 
testing of this organism, especially in cattle. Sub-meningeal in¬ 
oculations have no value for me. If it should be the organism of 
rabies, it must produce it under as nearly natural conditions as 
possible—that is, by subcutaneous inoculations; and last of all, 
inoculated dogs must induce rabies in healthy ones by biting 
them, to make the evidence conclusive. 
The other micro-organism was obtained from the freshly re¬ 
moved spleen of a heifer said u to have died from Texas fever,” 
and placed in my hands within thirty minutes from the time the 
animal died. 
Numerous inoculations were at once made from it upon steril¬ 
ized agar agar under the usual precautions- This organism has 
not been properly tested, for want of means to procure suitable 
animals. It will kill mice in twenty-four to thirty-six hours. It 
required seven days to kill a rabbit, the animal having a severe 
diarrhoea towards the end and suffering from acute parenchyma¬ 
tous nephritis, with albumen and casts in the urine, but no blood. 
