FUNGI. 287 



carcases, or by blood-poisoning through some acci- 

 dental scratch. Pasteur demonstrated by experi- 

 ment that the disease is really caused by the microbe, 

 and his experim.ents have since been confirmed. 

 Subsequent to this he turned his attention to its 

 mitigation or cure. Preservative means were those 

 upon which he chiefly relied, by a process of vaccina- 

 tion with the virus of anthrax, or splenic fever. 

 " Pasteur ascertained that when animals are inocu- 

 lated with a liquid containing bacteria, of which the 

 virulence has been attenuated by culture, carried as 

 far as the tenth generation or even further, their lives 

 are preserved. They take the disease, but generally 

 in a very mild form, and it is an important result 

 of this treatment that they are henceforward safe 

 from a fresh attack of the disease ; in a word, they 

 are vaccinated against anthrax." 



This is the theory and practice in all disease or 

 men and animals originating with microbes, which 

 have, as yet, been the subject of experiment. It is 

 stated that "up to April, 1882, more than 130,000 

 sheep and 2000 oxen or cows had been vaccinated ; 

 and since that time the demand for vaccine from 

 Pasteur's laboratory has reached him from every 

 quarter." 



It is unnecessary to do more than allude to fowl- 

 cholera, swine-fever, the typhoid fever of horses, 

 rabies, glanders, etc., as forms of disease having a 

 similar origin amongst the lower animals, before 

 passing to those which affect humanity. In former 

 times miasma was written and spoken about as 

 noxious emanations in the form of gas, but noiv 



