XVIL] SEPTIC AND PATHOGENIC ORGANISMS. 227 



on the surface of which he deposited his drop of poisonous 

 jequirity infusion containing the bacilli ; after some days' 

 incubation, the bacilli having become greatly multiplied, 

 he took out from this second culture a drop, and transferred 

 it to a new culture-tube of solid material, and so he went on : 

 every one of these cultures possessed poisonous action. 

 Clearly it would, since he always used part of the original 

 fluid deposited on the surface of the solid nourishing material. 

 Part of this (being gelatine) became by the growth liquefied, 

 but considering that Sattler started with infusions of 

 considerable concentration he left the seeds for many 

 hours and days in the infusion it is not to be wondered 

 at that this would bear a considerable amount of dilution, 

 and still retain its poisonous properties. From all this we 

 see, then, that the jequirity bacillus per se has nothing to do 

 with the poisonous principle of j the jequirity seeds, but that 

 this principle is a chemical ferment in some respects (in its 

 inability to withstand boiling) similar to the pepsin ferment. 1 



(C) The third case, in which an experimental attempt has 

 been made to transform a common septic into a specific or 

 pathogenic micro-organism, is exemplified by the common 

 mould, aspergillus, a mycelial fungus. But since this point 

 has been discussed already in Chapter XV. I need not here 

 enter into it again ; suffice it to say that certain species of 

 aspergillus possess the power of making in the rabbit a 



1 Since this has been in print, I became aware that Messrs. Wardei 

 and Waddell published in Calcutta during the present year a most 

 valuable memoir, detailing a large number of observations on the 

 jequirity poison, which are in complete harmony with my own observa- 

 tions. They have definitely proved, that the active principle is a 

 proteid abrin closely allied to native albumen ; that its action is 

 similar to that of a soluble ferment, that it can be isolated, and that it 

 is contained, not only in the seeds bnt also in the root and stem of 

 Abrus precatorius. 



Q 2 



