78 
N. S. FEBBY. 
'been carried on previously in the laboratory on dogs obtained 
from the dog pound. We were very much surprised to learn that 
the vaccine seemed to produce marked beneficial results in other 
animals as well, and the striking results convinced us that one 
organism would probably be found in other species of animals. 
To prove this was a field well worth exploring, but at that time 
I was unable to take up that side of the work. 
During the past two months a severe epizootic among our 
laboratory animals has compelled us, in our own defense, to study 
the condition pretty carefully, and we have found that although the 
disease, as the symptoms present themselves, differs somewhat in 
the various animals, yet the primary cause, without a single ex¬ 
ception, has been found to be due to the organism previously de¬ 
scribed by me and named Bacillus bronchicanis. In nearly ioo 
per cent, of the cases the B. bronchicanis was found at autopsy 
in pure culture in the lower trachea. In but a very few of the 
cases was there any sign of a nasal discharge or any abnormal 
condition of the eyes. The majority of the rabbits showed symp¬ 
toms of distemper, commonly called, in the rabbit, “ snuffles,” 
while but two or three of the guinea pigs were thus affected, and 
none of the monkeys. Only one of the animals, a monkey, had 
shown signs of a cough, which animals gave the B. bronchicanis 
pure in the trachea and blood. 
As the organism was found in pure culture in practically every 
case in the trachea and, in several instances, in the blood, it would 
seem as though the disease was primary in the respiratory tract, 
producing often a septicaemia, and in all cases a profound tox¬ 
emia. Many of the animals would die with no> symptoms other 
than those of an acute intoxication, namely, a rise in temperature, 
followed by a sudden fall, loss in weight and severe prostration, 
with death within a few days. 
The questions which now confront us are these: Are we 
dealing with a purely local condition and are our laboratory ani¬ 
mals infected simply from our dogs with a disease which is ever 
present? Or are we dealing with a clinical entity which is wide¬ 
spread and general ? Is it a disease, primarily, of the dog affect- 
