Klebsiella Paralytica: A New Pathogenic Bacterium from "Moose Disease"

Abstract

During the summer of 1927 one of us, while traveling through the wilderness of southern Ontario, heard repeated reports and rumors of a mysterious disease which was afflicting the moose of the CanadianMinnesota country, especially that region to the south of the international boundary, the Superior National Forest. This disease, reported by trappers, wardens, rangers and natives generally, was rumored to attack moose and to result in death in some cases. Since this time, reports of the disease have greatly increased, and the number of moose reported dead of it has also greatly increased, culminating in the really astonishing number of thirty-two well authenticated deaths reported by wardens working out of the Winton, Minn., headquarters alone?this for the early spring of 1932. This writer, engaged in an ecological study of the moose and a study of its life history, became seriously interested in the disease in 1930, but as nothing definite was in evidence at that time, it was not until 1931 that the attack on the problem of the disease was undertaken.