American Veterinary Review. 
MARCH, 1899. 
All communications for pitblication or in reference thereto should be addressed to Prof 
Roscoe R. Bell, Seventh Ave. Sf Union St., Borough of Brooklyn, New York City. 
EDITORIAL. 
EUROPEAN CHRONICLES. 
Actinomycosis. —In their excellent work on microbian 
diseases, Profs. Nocard and Leclainche say : “ Observation has 
demonstrated that contagion plays a very restricted part in the 
etiology of actinomycosis,” and the frequency of the appearance 
of the disease seems to depend merely on an infection due to the 
introduction into the organisms in some way of the vegetal 
parasite actinomyces. 
Commonly found on vegetables, under a yet undetermined 
state, actinomyces enter the organisms ordinarily through the 
anterior digestive organs, tongue, fauces and pharynx, are 
arrested between the molar teeth, which sometimes are affected 
with caries, a condition which becomes a predisposing cause. 
Erosions of mucous membrane, inhalation of the dust loaded 
with germs, invasion through the udder, some surgical opera¬ 
tions, are all to be taken into consideration when the means of 
infection are examined. The skin itself is not exempt from this 
possibility of admission to the parasite, and wounds by harness 
and collars explain sufficiently the frequency of the localization 
of the disease upon the neck. 
At a recent meeting of the Academie de Medecine of Paris, 
an interesting case of actinomycosis in the human subject was 
recorded where the point of infection, though cutaneous, is pe¬ 
culiarly rare. The case was that of a young woman who worked 
in the fields and became affected with actinomycosis of the um- 
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