Dr. Ballard's report upon an acute specific disease, characterised by a peculiar diarrhoea, epidemic among persons who had partaken of refreshments provided at a sale on the Duke of Portland's estate, at Welbeck, Notts. / [Edward Ballard].

  • Edward Ballard
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Ballard's report upon an acute specific disease, characterised by a peculiar diarrhoea, epidemic among persons who had partaken of refreshments provided at a sale on the Duke of Portland's estate, at Welbeck, Notts. / [Edward Ballard]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    carefully packed so as to prevent contact, to Dr. Klein for microscopical examination and experiment. I caused to be sent to. him also a portion of one of the kidneys of W. W. (Case 1), which had been hardened in spirit by Mr. Allen, the Sheffield Analyst. Other bits of tissue, intestines, stomach, &c., from the same body, and from that of Mr. S. {Case 3), were also forwarded; but they were useless on account of the decomposition they had undergone before they were put into the spirit. • The observations and experiments made with these substances by Dr. Klein are fully recorded in the Appendix (A) to this Deport. It will be sufficient for me here to summarise their results. 1st. The absence of trichinae in the ham was established. 2nd. The presence, in all three portions of ham—the raAV ham and the cooked ham, both that which had been and that which had not been exposed to sewer air—of a species of bacillus, with sporules of the same, was demon¬ strated. The bacillus threads and sporules were in connection with the muscular fibre and in the intermuscular tissue. 3rd. Bacillus material from the raw ham and from that portion of the cooked ham which had not been exposed to the sewer air, was successfully cultivated in the incubator. Cultivation was not attempted with the ham and the mutton that had been exposed to sewer air. 4th. Experiments upon animals, dogs, cats, mice, rats, rabbits, and guinea- pigs, by feeding or inoculation, or by both methods, were made both with material from the hams and with the cultivated material, with the following general results, viz.:— a. The experiments made with the portion of ham that had been exposed to the sewer air, and with the mutton similarly exposed, produced only negative results. b. The experiments made with the raw ham and with the portion of cooked ham not so exposed, produced in all but a few instances posi¬ tive and remarkable results, viz., disease in the animals experi¬ mented on. c. The experiments made with the raw ham were more uniformly suc¬ cessful than those made with the cooked ham. d. The experiments made with cultivated material gave in all cases posi¬ tive results. e. The morbid condition produced in the animals, and found on post mortem examination, was most uniformly pneumonia (in one instance with pleuritis) or pulmonary liypersemia. In some, haemorrhage into the pulmonary tissue was observed. In some, there was haemorrhage into the tissue of the liver, or the organ was found enlarged. In some the spleen was found enlarged or congested. In three instances peritonitis, slight or severe, was found. Two dogs fed and inoculated with the cooked ham, and killed on the 8th day (one having suffered from colic on the first day of feeding), exhibited after death evidence of severe desquamative hyperaemia or inflammation of the stomach and intestines, the contents of which contained bacilli and a few pus- corpuscles. Bacilli were found in the blood of two white mice which died hours after having been fed and inoculated with material from the raw ham ; but no bacilli was discoverable in the blood of two other mice inoculated with this blood, although, when they were killed on the 2nd and 3rd days respectively, they both were found to have severe pneumonia with enlarged liver and large congested spleen. Nor were bacilli found in the blood of four other animals in which they were sought for after death. 5tli. In the kidney of W. W. there were discovered evidences of parenchy¬ matous inflammation, and the afferent arterioles and capillaries of the Mal¬ pighian corpuscles were found plugged with emboli formed of masses of bacilli. In these observations and experiments, we have a clue to the solution of the difficulty, which the ordinary methods of inquiry failed to furnish. In two hams taken indiscriminately out of the same consignment there was found a living parasitic thing, capable of spreading by its growth and reproduction through the material in which it was found, and capable of pro-
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