28 D. Zeitsch. f. Thiermed., v., 1879, p. 16.
Nicati29 studied an epidemic diphtheria amongst hens which had similar symptoms and a course very much like that in man; it could be inoculated into other animals, and was contemporaneous with the outbreak of the epidemic amongst the human population of Marseilles. Trasbot30 succeeded in inoculating a healthy hen from a diphtheritic one, but the attempts at transmission to dog, pig, and man were unsuccessful. The Med. and Surg. Journal31 contains the following: In a house at Ogdensburg, N. Y., five children were ill with diphtheria. Three kittens who had been playing with them from time to time took the disease and died. Post-mortem examination showed diphtheritic membranes in their throats.32
29 Revue d'Hygiène et de Police sanitaire, 1879, p. 3.
30 "De la transmission de la Diphth. des Animaux à l'Homme," Gaz. hebdom., 1879 Avril 25.
31 Med. Rec., Nov. 8, 1879.
32 An elaborate description of the croupo-diphtheritic inflammations of mucous membranes in hens, turkeys, pheasants, and pigeons may be found in Zürn. Krankh. d. Hausgeflügels, 1882, p. 104.
Gerhardt33 reports the following: 2600 hens were imported from Verona, Italy, into a village, Messelhausen, in Baden. Some of these hens were affected with diphtheria when they arrived. Within six weeks 600 of their number died of diphtheria, and 800 more soon after. In the following summer 1000 chickens were raised by artificial breeding, all of which died of diphtheria within six weeks. Five cats kept in the place also died of diphtheria; a parrot fell sick with it, but recovered. An Italian cook, suffering from diphtheria, in the month of November, 1881, while being subjected to local treatment with carbolic acid, bit the head-nurse's left foot and hand. Both these wounds became diphtheritic, the man falling sick with high fever, and requiring three weeks for his gradual recovery. Besides, four of the six workingmen employed in taking care of the hens of the establishment were taken with diphtheria. Not a single case, however, occurred in the neighboring village. Thus, it is safe to assume that the diphtheritic disease of hens can be transmitted to man.
33 Verhandlungen des (ii.) Congresses für Innere Medicin, Wiesbaden, 1883, p. 129.
Diphtheria may be also produced by outside influences. In this regard the attempts at generating pseudo-membranes by artificial means are very interesting indeed. As early as 1826, Bretonneau, by the introduction of tincture of cantharides and olive oil into the trachea, succeeded in producing a "dense, elastic, reed-like membranous concretion." Delafond called croup into existence by the use of ammonia, oxygen, chlorine, corrosive sublimate, arsenic, and sulphuric acid. On the other hand, H. Mayer asserts that it is impossible, by means of ammonia, to produce a croup in the windpipes of animals which in the slightest degree resembles that occurring in human beings. Trendelenburg, however, after producing membranes in the trachea by the use of a solution of corrosive sublimate (1:120), succeeded in hardening the entire mass with bichromate of potassium, which it was impossible to do with the most tenacious mucus.
Rey observed croup in horses that inhaled smoke in a burning stable.34 In the collection of the veterinary school of Zurich there is a croup membrane from a heifer which had been exposed to a fire; at Munich, one from the trachea of a horse, produced by forcibly injecting medicines into the nose. Hahn made an observation on cows, W. Ammon on horses, of long croup membranes after the animals had been exposed to smoke and fire; and Oertel constantly insists on there being "no actual difference between croup as it ordinarily occurs and that excited in the windpipe of a rabbit by means of ammonia. The color and texture, the physical, chemical, and histological characteristics, are identical."