Medical Officers of the Army of India.
57
8o minims being injected at each site: at 2-20 P.M. temperature 101.9°, and no
organism detectible in the horse's blood: next day there was observed a
diffuse painful hard swelling at both sites of injection, and the patient seemed
a little feverish and excitable: these symptoms subsided and the animal was
subsequently lost sight of.
(2) An aged horse had inoculated subcutaneously some infected rat's blood mixed
with water: tumefaction occurred at the site of inoculation and no other result
is mentioned.
(3) The blood of a rat mingled with luke-warm water was injected subcutaneously in
a mare and a pony. The mare received 80 minims in front of the right
shoulder: on the following day marked swelling was perceptible at the spot,
which however speedily declined until hardly perceptible on the ninth day:
slight irregularities of the temperature were noted on two occasions, and up to
the nineteenth morning, when observation ceased, no spirilloid could be found
in the mare's blood, which had been daily inspected: some weeks later the
animal continued in good health. The pony received at several punctures in
the neck altogether about 90 minims of mixed rat-blood and water: and for
the nineteen days ensuing there were noticed only some slight perturbations
of temperature, slight swelling at the sites of inoculation subsiding on the fourth
day, and an absence on each day of any visible contamination of the blood of
the pony, which some weeks later continued in good health.
(4) A chesnut pony mare in good condition received in each jugular vein about
65 minims of blood from a rat mixed with tepid water—this blood teeming
with very active organisms: a smart rise of temperature occurred seven hours
afterwards; there was no local swelling, and no parasite could be detected
in the blood of the pony on the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth day of
experiment, nor at a later date was any positive result communicated.
Regarding these trials ending thus negatively, Mr. Steel remarks that "although
the amount of rat's blood used in each case has been very small, it is to be remembered
that an equal amount of blood from an infected mule would convey the 'surra' disease
to a healthy mule by either of the methods of administration adopted."
(f) In September 1885 I made the following essays of intra-peritoneal inoculation,
the subcutaneous method having hitherto failed. Rat's blood containing numerous monads
promptly taken from the heart and diluted with an equal part of warmed salt-solution
was introduced by syringe to the amount of 5 minims into the peritoneal cavity of a
rabbit and a monkey whose blood was previously ascertained to present normal aspect.
(I) Rabbit, young; e.t. 101.6°: second day m.t. 100.4°;
no change in the blood twice
examined; e.t. 102.2°; animal seems irritated, its blood unchanged: third day
m.t. 100.4°, nil, e.t. 102 6°, nil: fourth day m.t. 101.4°, nil, e.t. 101°, nil,
fibrine and white cells scanty: fifth day m.t. 100°, e.t. 101.4° nil: sixth
day
m.
t.
100°
nil, e.
t.
10°
nil: animal lively: seventh day m. t. 101° nil, e. t.
102°: eighth day 100.6° nil, e.t. 101.8°: ninth day m.t. 100.4° nil, e.t.
101.6°:
tenth day m.t. 100.4° nil, e.t. 100.4°: eleventh day m.t. 100.4° nil, e.t. 101.4°:
twelfth day m.t. 100.2° nil, e.t. 101° : thirteenth day m.t. 100.4°: nil,
e.t. 101.6°: fourteenth day m.t.
100° nil, e.t. 101°: fifteenth day m.t.