ABSTRACTS AND REPORT. 347

The author has been able to obsen'e unmistakable instances of transverse division by strangulation but no longitudinal division. At no period of cultivation has he been able to observe bacillary forms. The author has been unable to transmit the disease by inoculation with filtrate obtained by passing cultures through Bcrkefeld filters (V.).

There is no noticeable loss of virulence for the chicken when cultures are regularly transplanted into suitable media, but the author has observed when 110 transplantations into new media are made for about four weeks a culture which still shows numerous motile organisms fails to set up infection, even when large quantities of material are used for inoculation. The author suggests that this may possibly indicate that the organisms become attenuated in certain conditions, and that such attenuated cultures may possibly confer immunity (Nogurhi,Journ. of Exp. Med., Vol. XV!., NO.5, 1st November 19 I 2, pp. 620-628).

A CASE OF PSEUDO-ANTHRAX.

THE following peculiar case is recorded by Wilamowski, who believes it to be unique. The patient was a woman about forty-five years of age in the hospital at St. Petersburg. The following symptoms were presented: Marked dyspncea, excitability of the heart, and sub-febrile temperature. The illness had begun about eight days previous to the admission of the patient into the clinique, there being in addition to the symptoms already mentioned vomiting and diarrhcea. Shortly after the first onset of symptoms <:edema of the legs set in, which compelled the patient to take to her bed. There was no loss of consciousness, but weakness was very marked. Respiration was shallow and thirty-five per minute. There was marked wasting, cyanosis, and slight yellow discoloration of the skin. Wave-like movements could be observed in the veins of the neck. The lymphatic glands of the neck and the axillre were enlarged but not painful. The liver was enlarged, hard, and painful, and there was a dry cough. The heart was enlarged, but the sounds were faint. A blood count showed that there were 7125 white corpuscles and 3>350,000 red corpuscles per cubic millimetre.

After the patient had been in the hospital for fourteen days, during which time her condition became aggravated, pleurisy set in, but a microscopic examination of the exudate was negative. Broth cultures, on the other hand, showed a motile bacillus which was Gram-positive. From the second week the spleen began to enlarge, the yellow discoloration a.nd the cyanosis increased, there was insomnia, headache and pains of the whole body, and sweating. Symptoms of cedema of the lung, a.nd failure of the heart set in, and the patient died.

At the post-mortem examination the following lesions were found. The heart was hypertrophied and dilated. In the left pleural cavity there was a large quantity of hremorrhagic exudate. The left lung contained two hard nodules, and the right two infarcts. The lungs were cedematous, the spleen was twice the normal size and hard, the liver enlarged and very congested. The mucous membrane of the small and large intestines was congested and moist

ABSTRACTS AND REPORT.

Cultures were made from the pleural exudate, spleen, and bone marrow, and a Gram-positive organism was obtained in pure culture. The same bacillus was obtained from the liver. From an examination of the cultures obtained the foll owing details regarding the bacillus were discovered. In broth cultures large numbers of bacilli were found, which on microscopic examination in hanging drop preparations were found to be motile. The bacilli were Gram-positive and formed central spores. The ends of the bacilli were concave, and short and long chains were observed. There was a distinct space between the individual bacilli in the chain. The organisms closely resembled the anthrax bacillus, and could only be differentiated from that organism by their motility. Further investigations showed that the organism was an rerobe. On the surface of agar it developed a white layer which rapidly covered the whole surface of the medium. The edges of the growth were somewhat transparent, and the whole surface of the growth presented an appearance which suggested that It had been pricked with a needle. The bacilli obtained from aga r cultures were n ot motile and formed long chains, but those which developed in the water of conden sation were motile, and more than two were seldom observed to be joined together. No gas was developed in glucose agar. Growth was rapid upon potato, a somewh at dry whitish pellicle being formed. In broth flocculi formed, causing a turbidity of the medium. Milk was rapidly coagulated. Gelatine was liquefied, but the liquefaction did not extend very far down the needle track, and no lateral outgrowths were formed. On agar plates white round colonies with darker centres developed, the rims of the colonies presenting an appearance which suggested coils of hair.

Owing to the similarity of the cultural characters of this organism to those of the true anthrax bacillus a series of parallel cultures were made for the sake of comparison. It was found that the colonies of the two organisms on the st:rface of agar could not be distinguished. On the surface of gelatine, although there was a great similarity, the two could be distinguished. Cultures on potato were indistinguishable, and milk was coagulated rather more rapidly by the organism than by the anthrax bacillus. The cultures in broth were distinguishable by the fact that the anthrax bacillus does not cause turbidity. Finally gelatine stab cultures were distinguishable because the anthrax bacillus grows throughout the length of the needle track and .produces lateral outgrowths.

Inoculation E xperiments.-A mouse was injected with t cc. of broth culture intraperitoneally and died in twelve hours. At the post-mortem no organic lesions were discoverable. The organism was found in smear preparations from the peritoneal fluid, from the blood and the organs, those made from the lungs being particularly rich. Cultures made from the organs developed the above-described characters.

Two guinea-pigs were inoculated into the peritoneum with a small quantity of agar culture suspended in salt solution, and death took place two weeks later. The only lesion found at the post-mortem was hremorrhagic · cedema at the seat of inoculation. Bacilli were found and cultures made as before.

The author draws the following conclusions :-I. The organism was closely related to the already described bacillus

anthracoides, or to the bacillus pseudo-anthracis. 2. Clinically pseudo-anthrax cannot be distinguished from true internal

anthrax. 3. It is possible that some cases which are considered to be true anthrax

are in reality cases of pseudo-anthrax.

ABSTRACTS AND REPORT. 349

4. Careful bacteriological investigation is necessary to verify cases considered to be true anthrax.

5. Investigation 'is necessary to decide whether the bacillus of pseudo­anthrax is an organism responsible for disease in the lower animals which is transmissible to man.

6. The methods of infection of pseudo-a:1thrax are unknown, but it is possible that they resemble those of true anthrax infection;

7. Pseudo-anthrax infection may follow the inhalation of spores or bacilli.

8. Cases of pseudo-anthrax or the anthracoid diseases are related clinically to the cases of true anthrax in the same way as the cases of paratyphoid are related to typhoid. (Wilamowski, Centralb. j. Bakt. usw., Orig. Vol. LXVI., No. I, 24th August 1912, pp. 39-43.)

MEAT POISONING AND FOOD POISONING IN RE-LATIONSHIP TO CONTAMINATION OF MEAT BEFORE AND AFTER DEATH.

FROM the hygienic point of view two possibilities must be taken into considera­tion in connection with conditions recognised in the human subject as meat poisoning. These two possibilities are-the ante-mortem and the post-mortem infection of the meat. Past experience would appear to indicate that ante­mortem contamination always results from illness of the animal, the illness rendering slaughter necessary, and in these cases the meat is always under suspicion as a food-stuff for man both before and after slaughter. Post­mortem infection of meat, on the other hand, may occur in the carcases of perfectly healthy animals. In such cases the food is suitable for man for a certain period after the slaughter of the animal, and it only becomes unsuitable when the meat or, as a rule, a portion of the meat becomes a vehicle of pathogenic bacteria, such bacteria being either pathogenic both for man and for animals, or for man only. In cases of postmortem contamina­tion it is only by accident that the meat becomes the vehicle of organisms pathogenic [or man.

Although outbreaks of disease occurring after the consumption of meat are termed cases of meat poisoning, the diagnosis is based upon the clinical aspect of the cases, and the diagnosis is supported by the discovery of meat poisoning organisms in the people attacked and in the meat that is blamed for the outbreak. From a point of view of hygiene, and more particularly from the point of view of meat hygiene, there is a distinct line of demarcation between cases of meat poisoning produced by ante-mortem and by Dos/-mortem infection.

With a view to prevention an attempt must be made in every outbreak of meat poisoning to discover whether the incriminated meat has become infected before or after slaughter, since if the infection has occurred ante­mortem it indicates that the routine method of meat inspection has failed to recognise the contamination.

Outbreaks of meat poisoning due to meat contaminated after slaughter do not stand in any relationship to meat inspection, because in such cases it is not a matter of the transmission of animal diseases to man, but in many instances the transmission of disease from man to man, some article of diet