220 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CHAP. 



carried on, cultivation of hay bacillus ultimately yields a fluid 

 which produces typical anthrax, then I should be perhaps 

 prepared to concede his proposition of a transmutation of 

 hay bacillus into bacillus anthracis. Such a proposition is 

 of the widest importance, and therefore its proof ought to be 

 beyond cavil, there ought to be no chance of a possibility 

 of error. Such proof Buchner has not given, and I cannot 

 therefore accept his interpretation. 



() The second instance in which the transformation of a 

 common septic into a specific or pathogenic organism has 

 been experimentally achieved, or I should rather say has been 

 stated to have been achieved, is the jequirity bacillus. In 

 1882 the well-known ophthalmologist M. L. de Wecker in 

 Paris drew attention to the therapeutic value of the seeds 

 or beans of Abrus precatorius, a leguminosa common in India 

 and South America. The people of Brazil use it under the 

 name jequirity as a means to cure trachoma, or granular 

 lids. De Wecker after many experiments found that a few 

 drops of an infusion made of these seeds causes severe 

 conjunctivitis, in the course of which, no doubt, trachoma 

 is brought to disappearance and cure, and it is accordingly 

 on the Continent and in this country now used for this 

 therapeutic object. [I am informed by my friend Dr. T. 

 Lewis, formerly of India, now pathologist at the Netley Army 

 Medical School, that the people in some parts of India know 

 the poisonous properties of these seeds, and use it for 

 inoculating with them subcutaneously, cattle ; in consequence 

 a severe inflammation is set up, and the animals die of some 

 sort of septicaemia. This is done for the sake of simply 

 obtaining the hides of the beasts.] 



Sattler, in a very important and extensive research ( Wiener 

 medic. Wochenschrift, N. 17-21, 1883, and Klin. Monatsbl.f. 



