17 0 ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS.

Kidneys.-The left presented numerous miliary tubercles; in the right were found 4 or 5 tuberculous centres in the way of softening.

The above-mentioned lesions were considered to establish beyond doubt the existence of tuberculosis, and a microscopic examination, being considered unnecessary, was not practised.

Dr Bourgougnon concludes that, taking into account the extreme rarity of tuberculosis in the dog, and the conditions to which this animal had been subjected from its birth, there seems no reason to doubt that this was a case of transmission from man to the dog.

Concerning the exact mode of transmission it was not easy to form an opinion. Doubtless the dog, living constantly in contact with consumptives, would swallow bacilli in sputum or vomited matters, but the absence of any lesions in the digestive tube, and the very advanced pulmonary lesions, seemed to indicate that infection had taken place by the respiratory passages.

TRANSMISSION OF STRANGLES FROM THE MOTHER TO THE FCETUS.

IN the year 1880 M. Choisy, a French army veterinary surgeon submitted to the Societe Central de Medicine Veterinaire the organs of a foal in which were present a series of very unusual lesions. The foal was born at or about full term, but it died a few minutes after its birth. The lesions found at the autopsy were as follows. The lungs did not collapse, they filled almost the entire capacity of the chest, and their surface was irregular, mamillated, covered with projections of a whitish-yellow colour and of various sizes. These irregularities existed on the surface of both lungs. Section of the lungs showed these organs to be completely and entirely crammed with tumours, which could hardly be termed either tubercles or lesions of lobular pneumonia. These tumours varied in size from a millet-seed to a nut. The smallest were rounded, but the majority of the larger tumours were irregular in contour. At some points they were confluent, elsewhere more or less discrete, and the intervening tissue had normal characters. A microscopic examination showed that these tumours were neither carcinoma, sarcoma, epithelioma, nor lymphadenoma. At the centre of the tumours groups of alveoli were filled with degenerated embryonic cells, or with their debns. A few intra-vascular giant cells were present. At no part were the characteristic lesions of tubercle or of glanders present, although there was a slight resem­blance to caseous pneumonia.

The intestinal mucous membrane in the whole of its extent was covered by a prodigious number of small whitish projecting tumours, irregularly rounded or lenticular in form, and varying in dimensions from the size of a grain of millet to that of a small pea. The first were present near the pylorus, and isolated j they became more and more numerous until in a great part of the jejunum they were confluent, and in the ileum they were again isolated. The smallest of these tumours resembled small tubercles. They were rounded, hard, projecting, whitish in colour, and involved the entire thickness of the mucous membrane. On section they appeared white and fibrous, with a greyish softened centre of caseous matter. The larger and more numerous tumours had undergone softening, and at a distance the mucous membrane seemed covered with ulcerations. They were circumscribed by a white, indurated, almost smooth, projecting collar. This collar formed the circum­ference of a small cavity excavated in the thickness of the mucous membrane, empty or containing caseous matter. At a certain part of the bowel these

ABSTRACTS AND REPORT~ 17 1

appearances were modified by the confluence of the tumours. All of these lesions appeared to be of a chronic character, there being no trace anywhere of acute inflammation. One tumour similar to those of the small intestine was present on the right sac of the stomach.

The lacteal vessels, especially those arising from the middle part of the intestine, where the mucous membrane was notably thickened and indurated, were enlarged, and their walls were thickened; they were hard, and studded by small nodosities separated from one another by successive strangulations. The lymphatic glands near the origin of the anterior mesenteric artery appeared slightly hypertrophied. These glands contained white, indurated miliary tumours with softened centres.

A microscopic examination of the mucous membrane of the small intes­tine showed that it was greatly thickened. At some places it had almost preserved its normal structure, the glands and connective tissue being almost intact, but infiltrated and dissociated by numbers of embryonic cells or degenerating epithelium. Elsewhere it had lost its glandular layer, and the subjacent tissue was thickened by a considerable infiltration of degenerated elements.

M. N ocard, to whom these organs were committed with a view to deter­mining their exact nature, suspected at first that the lesions were glanderous or tubercular, but this was negatived by the fact that the mare that gave birth to the foal was in a state of perfect health. Moreover, attempts to demon­strate the tubercle bacillus by the method of Ehrlich gave negative results; and, similarly, staining by the method of Lomer failed to show the glanders organism. The method of Gram equally failed to reveal the presence of any organism. Quite recently, however, M. Nocard returned to the examination of the organs, and employed, with a view to staining any germs there present, a method recently indicated by Weigert. By this proceeding there were revealed in the lung and bowel lesions immense numbers of a micrococcus, isolated, or in short chains.

The history of the mare showed that at about the seventh month of pregnancy she had been the subject of an attack of strangles, and M. Nocard finds that the micrococci present in the lesions of the foal are identical with those constantly found in the pus of strangles, with which they agree in form, dimensions, disposition, and colour reaction. He concludes, therefore, that the case was one of transmission of strangles from the mother to the fcetus by way of the placenta. It is to be hoped that this observation will lead those who have the opportunity to note carefully cases of strangles occurring in pregnant mares, and especially to make a careful post-mortem of the fcetus should abortion take place.-Recuett de Medicine Veten·naire.

PREVENTIVE INOCULATION OF HERBIVOROUS ANIMALS AFTER THE BITE OF A RABID DOG.

THERE has recently been presented to the French Academy of Sciences a note on the above subject by M. V. Saltier. l In a series of former experiments M. Saltier showed that the intravenous injection of the virus of rabies did not give the malady to sheep and goats, and that it conferred immunity on them against the effects of the virus introduced subsequently, or simultaneously, or even some instants before, into their organism, by puncture or hypodermic scarification, thus realising the conditioJ1s of the bites of rabid dogs. Re­searches made by MM. Nocard and Roux have amply confirmed M. Saltier's deductions, and numerous more recent experiments of his own have invariably

1 Co»'ptes .Rendu8, 16th April 1888.