Three Sporadic Cases of Infection due to Salmonella Type Dublin.

In 1926 Pesch reported a case of meningitis due to a Gaertner-like organism. The culture was examined by Bruce White (1926) and was found by him to be identical with an organism sent to him by Dr. J. W. Bigger. This Dublin strain was isolated from a case of fatal fever supervening after a kidney operation. Bruce White (1929) has exhaustively examined the serology of the Dublin strain. He has shown that the somatic antigens of the Dublin type and of S. enteritidis are identical, but that on the other hand the flagellar antigens differ; and he represents these antigens of S. enteritidis as R, P1, and P2, and the same antigens of the Dublin type as R, P1 and P3. Thus, when S. enteritidis serum is saturated with the Dublin type, or Dublin serum with S. enteritidis, there remains in each case a definite residue of flagellar agglutinins for the homologous organism. Smith and Scott (1930) reported the clinical findings in two cases, and the bacteriological findings only in one case, of infection due to this organism. In addition all available strains of Gaertner-like organisms were examined with the result that the Dublin type of Salmonella was found to have been the causative agent in a milk epidemic in Newcastle in 1910, and in outbreaks of food poisoning in Nottingham in 1919, and in London in 1921 ; the organism had also been isolated from a case of septicaemia by Gregg and Hayes in 1921. Further, this Dublin type of Salmonella was found to be identical with certain ' paracolon bacilli' isolated by Jensen (1913) from cases of calf dysentery. From the available evidence Smith and Scott suggested that the Dublin type is of bovine habitat, and that cows' milk is the vehicle of infection.