BACTERIOLOGICAL STUDIES ON AN EPIZOOTIC OF INTESTINAL DISEASE IN SUCKLING AND NEWLY WEANED MICE

It is now quite generally conceded that the presence in animals of bacteria of Salmonella type is indicative of an active, or potentially active, pathogenic agent (26). In the present instance bacteriological studies of the organs of acutely ill infant mice revealed the presence of one of the Salmonella group. It showed itself to be such by an absence of fermentation of lactose and saccharose, by other cultural reactions, and by cross-agglutination with certain members of the Salmonella group in very low dilutions of their antisera.(6) However, the bacterium cannot be included in any of the known species of the group because of its indol-forming properties, differences in carbohydrate reactions, and specific serological reactions. Its presence in affected mice, growth on artificial media, ability to cause the disease following enteral and parenteral inoculations, and the fact that it can be recovered from artificially infected mice fulfill the postulates of Koch. Furthermore, agglutinins are present in the blood of recovered mice and not in that of normal animals, and recovery of mice from natural infection evokes an apparent resistance against the special recovered Salmonella bacterium. The organism would appear to fall in the Asiaticusdivision of the genus, as designated by Castellani and Chalmers (27).