266 Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History. 



would require. Although staining with some difficulty, many 

 slides were prepared in which the individual bacteria were beau- 

 tifully stained and distinctly differentiated from an uncolored 

 film, by brown aniline, methyl violet, and magenta. 



Although several of the attempts at artificial culture were 

 abortive, and although the cultures resulting were sometimes im- 

 pure and occasionally doubtful, enough cases of unquestionable 

 success occurred to give full effect to this mode of proof. The 

 details supporting this statement will be given under another 

 head. It is worthy of special remark that in no case did the 

 beef broth in which these cultures were made, although it be- 

 came densely milky with bacteria, give off the slightest smell of 

 decomposition. Only a faint, indescribable odor was percepti- 

 ble, but little different from that of the fresh liquid. 



To the above we may add the association of these spherules 

 with diseased conditions and with post mortem phenomena 

 which could scarcely be accounted for at all, except on the sup- 

 position of the bacterial character of these excessively abundant 

 forms. 



The proof of the contagious character of the disease in 

 question, next to be adduced, must also be taken as indirect, 

 or, at least, prima facie evidence, in the present state of our 

 knowledge, of the living organic character of these multi- 

 tudinous particles, — the only forms present which could in any 

 way be connected with the disease as agents of the contagion. 



Contagious Character of the Disease. 



Most of the considerations brought forward in the preced- 

 ing section apply with some force to the subject of this, for if 

 the fluids of the diseased and dead larvaB swarm with micrococci 

 so minute (these appearing in the blood long before death), 

 and if these are shown to escape from the body by way of 

 the excrement and the fluids exuding from the vent, the pre- 

 sumption is strong that the disease which they characterize 

 would be conveyed to healthy individuals by their instrumen- 

 tality. But we must look for proof of contagion chiefly to the 

 conditions of the occurrence of the disease, to the phenomena 



