506 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Nov., 1899. 
Mr. Hammond’s place, and to gather all the available information, examine the 
carcasses, and bring back specimens of the internal organs, contents of stomach, 
&e. 
According to information supplied by the owner, 25 animals (including 
cows and calves) were turned into a paddock close to Calvert Railway Station, 
near Grandchester. On the following day 3. animals were noticed to sicken, 
and within 24 hours each animal was dead. On the 22nd September several 
fresh animals were introduced into the same paddock, and when my assistant 
arrived on Saturday, the 23rd instant, a young heifer had just died. He pre- 
pared a number of microscopical preparations of blood and serum from various 
_ internal organs—i.e., the heart, lungs, liver, kidney, and spleen. In most of these 
specimens, which I stained in gentian violet and methylene blue and examined 
microscopically, I detected numerous thread-like bacilli which in fresh specimens 
were extremely motile. From the morphological and cultural characters of 
these bacilli, their behaviour to staining reagents and the symptoms and post- 
mortem appearances of the diseased animal, there can be very little doubt that 
this animal, and probably the others, died from malignant edema. 
Bacillus of Malignant (idema, showing development of spores x 1,000. 
As the bacillus of malignant cedema is distinctly an inhabitant of the soil, 
T am of opinion that it is brought to the surface by growing vegetation during 
the spring time after rain, and finds its way into the subcutaneous tissues 
through lacerated wounds on the skin, caused most probably by the animal 
eating some form of plant with sedgy edges to its leaves. 
REMARKS ON MALIGNANT (EDEMA. 
This disease is essentially one of wound-infection, and around the seat of 
inoculation produces an extensive emphysema of the skin, putrefaction and 
cedematous softening of the superficial muscles, 
During the progress of the disease the affected parts of the skin are 
usually swollen and crackle on pressure with the hand; the central portion is 
generally cool and relaxed, while all around the periphery it is somewhat tense 
and extremely painful, 
