Investigations into the Nature, Causation, and Prevention of Texas or Southern Cattle Fever Page: 160

                                
160

TEXAS OR SOUTHERN CATTLE FEVER.

Case .-September 1, 1886. Another cow died this morning at Hamilton, Va. The
spleen was immediately removed, wrapped in sublimated cloths, and kept on ice
until it could be examined next morning.
This organ is likewise very large, the tissue disintegrated and very dark. No
bacteria could be seen in cover-glass preparations. In or on many red blood-cor-
puscles there are small round bodies perhaps 1 pu in diameter, centrally or slightly
eccentrically situated, which stain poorly in an aqueous solution of methyl violet,
very well in methyl violet to which aniline water has been added (Koch-Ehrlich
tubercle stain). They then resemble micrococci in size and form. Only a few are
found outside of the corpuscles. Unstained they can be seen as mere transparent
spaces in the corpuscles.
Five tubes containing bouillon peptone were inoculated from the spleen, three with
the platinum loop simply, two with bits of tissue. Several agar and one blood serum
(beef) culture were also made. All remained sterile. The method of inoculation
consisted in thoroughly scorching the uninjured capsule, making an incision through
this scorched area with a flamed scalpel, a second at right angles to this with a fresh
knife. From the latter incision bits of pulp were torn away with flamed forceps and
transferred on platinum loops to the various culture tubes.
Case 3.-Cow died at 9 a. m., August 28, 1888, in Carroll County, Md. The autopsy
was made by Dr. Farrington at 10 a. m. some of the organs were placed in different
compartments of a refrigerator pail specially constructed for this purpose, in which
they were surrounded by a jacket of ice. The temperature of the air in the inner
compartments varied from 320 to 400 F. No decomposition could thus begin, or con-
tinue if already begun, while the organs were kept in the pail packed with ice.
Cultures were made from the various organs as soon as they reached the laboratory.
The unbroken surface was thoroughly scorched and bits of tissue, etc., cut out from
within this scorched area with sterile instruments.
The spleen is very large, pulp dark and disintegrated. Red blood-corpuscles do
nbt appear altered. When stained with alkaline methylene blue on cover glasses
the spleen pulp reveals no bacteria. Four tubes were inoculated with bits of the
pulp, two containing bouillon peptone, two agar. After a week all sterile.
The liver is of a mahogany color, due to the accumulation of bile. When a bit of
the liver tissue is crushed in salt solution and examined unstained under the micro-
scope the liver cells themselves show their nucleus with five or six fat granules
around it. Each cell is encircled by a narrow band of reddish-yellow material, form-
ing a polygonal network and representing the bile canaliculi filled with inspissated
bile. This peculiar injection is even visible on stained cover-glass preparations.
It breaks up into straight and Y-shaped rods, indicating that it is solid in consist-
ency. The rods are about 1.5,u thick.
Sections of liver tissue (hardened in Miiller's fluid and alcohol imbedded in chlo-
roform paraffin and) stained in alum carmine, show a marked distention of the capil-
laries of the middle zone of the acini with red corpuscles. The bile canaliculi in
the innermost and outermost zones appear as a yellow network. The nuclei of the
cells of the innermost zone have become disintegrated, each appearing as a group of
roundish granules. The middle zone shows degenerated and normal nuclei mingled
together.
Blood corpuscles begin to crenate rapidly; in other respects no changes are man-
ifest.
Cultures from the liver, three in bouillon peptone and two in agar, contain active
growths on the following day. Nearly all contain the same motile bacillus. It is
short, with rounded ends. In gelatin-roll cultures its colonies appear in the form
of very thin, iridescent patches on the surface of the gelatin.
A portion of the large intestine contained lumps of hard feces. The mucosa was
considerably reddened from the injection of minute vessels, especially on the summit
of the longitudinal folds. Numerous roll cultures in gelatin were made from ma-
terial scraped from the surface of the membrane. In most of these tlebs Qhlie sa.~e