5^ Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



presence in the blood of something in the nature of a ferment, 

 which I then supposed to be fungoid, those symptoms pre- 

 senting, as it appeared to me, considerable analogy to the 

 results produced by ferments upon saccharine solutions. Sir 

 Joseph did not take any notice of this part of my letter, the 

 bulk of which had reference to questions relating to the botany 

 of New Zealand, and there, so far as I was concerned, the 

 matter ended ; and I only mention this now in order to show 

 why I take so much interest in the important investigations to 

 which I have alluded. 



It must be apparent that the results established by these 

 investigations render it of the utmost importance that there 

 should be a more general knowledge than now exists, of the 

 nature of the minute organisms in question, of their mode of 

 action on man and the domestic animals, and of the circum- 

 stances which lead to or favour their introduction into the 

 body, more especially, as regards the latter point, with a view 

 to the adoption of all possible measures to prevent it. 



The first to notice the presence in the blood of the class of 

 organisms referred to was Davaine, wbo, in 1850, found in 

 that of animals which had died of splenic fever quantities of 

 minute rods, to which he gave the name of bacteridia ; but it 

 was only in 1863, wdien Pasteur had discovered the part played 

 in fermentation by some of the organisms now forming mem- 

 bers of the class termed microbes, that Davaine was led to 

 suppose that these bacteridia were the actual cause of the 

 splenic fever. 



This disease, commonly known by the name of anthrax, 

 affects man as well as animals, and' is one of the most deadly 

 to which cattle and sheep especially are subject. In these 

 animals it is generally produced by inoculation, as, for ex- 

 ample, by the bites of flies which have fed upon the carcases 

 of beasts that have died of the disease, or by the poison 

 coming otherwise into contact with some accidental abrasion 

 of the skin, or with punctures of the nmcous coat of the mouth 

 caused by the prickles of plants on which they may have fed. 

 The period of incubation of the disease is extremely short, an 

 ox, apparently healthy at his return from his work, having 

 been known to exhibit symptoms of the disease soon after, 

 and to die within an hour after exhibiting the first appearance 

 of infection. 



In order to discover why this disease was so common in 

 some distiicts in France in which it had been found difficult 

 previously to assign a cause for its spread, Pasteur carried on 

 some experiments, with the aid of two other specialists, and 

 found that sheep permitted to feed on grass upon which 

 bacteridia taken from the blood of diseased animals had been 

 intentionally spread, speedily manifested all the symptoms of 



