250 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CHAP. 



of the organism, a sort of non-organised ferment, but not 

 the organism itself, although this latter is essential for the 

 creation of the latter. 



Inoculating a few bacilli anthracis into the subcutaneous 

 tissue of a suitable animal, e.g. a guinea-pig, we find after 

 twelve to twenty-four hours the first indications of illness, 

 consisting in a local swelling and a general rise of the body- 

 temperature. At this time there are present in the local 

 swelling bacilli, but only in small numbers ; in the blood the 

 bacilli are very scarce indeed, so scarce that it is difficult to 

 meet with one bacillus in an appreciable quantity of blood. 

 By this time then the bacilli could not have produced the 

 change by their " numbers " alone. Immediately before 

 death, sometimes some hours, we find in most instances the 

 blood teeming with the bacilli, but this is by no means in all 

 cases ; I have seen a considerable number of deaths from 

 typical anthrax in the mouse, guinea-pig, rabbit, and sheep, 

 occurring from forty-eight to sixty hours after inoculation, in 

 which the number of bacilli of the blood and tissues was 

 extremely small; they were present, but only here and 

 there was there one to be found. That the bacilli are present 

 some hours before death in the shape of spores, as has been 

 maintained by Archangelski, I have disproved in a former 

 chapter. In those cases in which the bacilli are scarce even 

 in articulo mortis and immediately after death, the scarcity is 

 not due to the bacilli having already degenerated, since the 

 degenerating bacilli are not noticeable in any way in these 

 instances. It remains then to assume that death occurs in 

 these cases not owing to the presence of the bacilli in num- 

 bers ; that is to say, that it is neither owing to their appro- 

 priating from the blood-corpuscles the available oxygen 

 necessary for their multiplication (Bellinger) and thus pro- 

 ducing death by asphyxia, nor to their mechanical effect in 



