Investigations into the Nature, Causation, and Prevention of Texas or Southern Cattle Fever Page: 164
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164
TEXAS OR SOUTHERN CATTLE FEVER.
there. Two or three such patches radiate from the center into different directions,
some joining a patch form a neighboring lobule, others extending only a short dis-
tance. No lobule is entirely intact. Under a high power (Zeiss 2mm. obj. ocular 4)
the unstained areas show the cells faintly as yellowish masses of a finely granular
character with a faint indication of the nucleus. The peripheral, stained areas
show the cells with protoplasm very finely vacuolated (effect of the fatty degenera-
tion?), the nuclei still distinct. In the capillaries are occasional clumps of yellow
pigment evidently inclosed in cells.
In sections from another portion of the liver, which are stained in alum carmine,
and in aniline water methyl violet, the necrotic areas are present only in a shallow
zone under the capsule. The remainder of the section shows the same faintly vac-
uolated condition already referred to. In the alum carmine section the cell proto-
plasm is seen sprinkled thoroughly with very minute pigment granules. In the cap-
illaries of all regions the Texas fever parasites are distinctly (methyl violet stain) seen
within the red corpuscles which distend the lumen of the vessel. Each corpuscle
contains apparently but one round coccus-like body stained blue (1892).
In 1889 several of the permanent cover-glass preparations of the liver were care-
fully reexamined. In one preparation stained with gentian violet and decolorized
with acetic acid, intraglobular bodies are distinctly visible, though present in very
small numbers. In some corpuscles there were two bodies, in others but one.
They appeared as round cocci stained blue in the uncolored corpuscle.
The mucosa of the fourth stomach is rather dark in color and contains very many
small pits. The duodenum is filled with a dark-red thick liquid with putrefactive
odor, probably bile. The membrane is swollen, glistening, dark red, owing to
punctate and linear pigment spots closely set in the membrane. Portions of the
small intestine were brought with ends tied. The mucosa covered by a dirty cream-
colored pasty layer consisting of desquamated epithelium and molecular debris.
Portions of mucosa have a deep wine-red color. Roll cultures made from the scrap-
ings of the wall in these various situations contain the same germ found in o the
intestines and in the liver.
Kidney, dark red; the surface presents minute blood-red points. All but the lip of
the papillae deeply congested. Ecchymoses in the pelvis. Of three cultures made
from bits of tissue one becomes faintly clouded; the others remain clear. From the
former a roll culture fails to develop. The ligated bladder contains about 1 quart
of deep brownish red, slightly opaque urine; specific gravity, 1030. Sediment very
slight. In it red blood corpuscles are still distinctly visible. The mucosa of the
bladder has a pale-red appearance, probably due to the imbibition of haemoglobin.
Of three cultures made from the urine all remain sterile.
The microbe, isolated from the intestines of the four cases examined, and from the
liver in two cases, was a saprophyte so far as its appearance and growth in culture
media are concerned. It produces considerable turbidity in neutralized bouillon,
with or without peptone, but there is no distinct membrane formed. The bacteria
are motile, but their motility may be overlooked. In the hanging drop they appear
quiet for a time, then one or more in the field of the microscope suddenly begin to
move rapidly across the field, at the same time executing revolutions about that
point as an axis where two are attached to each other. The peculiar bluish expan-
sive colonies on gelatin, taken in connection with the other biological characters
and the presence of these bacteria in the intestines of healthy cattle and other
'domesticated animals, identify them with the very common bacillus B. coli conmmunis.
Inoculated into the small experimental animals this bacillus seems to exert no bad
effect if the dose be limited. Large doses have not been tried, for the reason that
some putrefactive bacteria which are known to be harmless may produce death when
large doses are injected subcutaneously more by a kind of poisoning than by the
actual infection of the organism with the injected microbes.
From an agar culture originally inoculated from a colony in a roll culture pre-
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Smith, Theobold & Kilborne, Fred Lucius. Investigations into the Nature, Causation, and Prevention of Texas or Southern Cattle Fever, book, 1893; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143538/m1/184/?q=%221863%22: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.