Abstract
The primary object of the investigation
recorded in this thesis was to determine, if possible,
the frequency in which the Bacillus abortus of Bang
could be recovered from tonsil tissue.
It is obvious that normal tonsils would not
be available for this study and, therefore, one was
compelled to use organs which had been removed for
one reason or another - "enlarged tonsils ". From
the stand point of the investigation, however, these
might be regarded as normal tonsils in this sense
that none of the patients from whom they were derived
showed any evidence of Undulant Fever, whose causal
agent - the Bacillus abortus - was specifically
sought.
While it has been reported by several
American observers (Mohler and Traum,)913., Poelma
and Dickens, 1932, and Carpenter and Boak, 1932)that
B. abortus can sometimes be isolated from tonsils,
we are not aware of any similar investigation having
been carried out in this country.
It might be argued that this study was of
purely academic interest, but in a statistic of 850
samples of fresh milk in the City of Dundee no less
than 18% were found to be infected with the B.
abortus, (Morton, 1933). It might well be then
that the matter is not without practical significance.
