96 Kansas Academij of Science. 



might be some reason for such a reception, but at that time it 

 was inexcusable. Discouraged, Koch returned to Germany, 

 and even there his claim of discovery of the specific microbe 

 concerned in cholera was met with scepticism and derision. 

 Even Professor Pettenkofer, a famous bacteriologist, refused 

 to accept the apparently harmless little comma bacillus as be- 

 ing responsible for the dreaded cholera. To prove his con- 

 tempt for Koch's claim, it is said, he drank a suspension of the 

 germs — a veritable cholera high ball. After a lingering and 

 almost fatal illness, Pettinkoffer fortunately recovered — need- 

 less to say, converted to the efficacy and specificity of Koch's 

 germ in the production of cholera. 



Cholera is closely akin to typhoid fever, but much more 

 fatal in its effects. Its origin, its methods of dissemination 

 and its means of entrance are similar to that of the typhoid 

 bacillus. It is specifically a human disease. The average an- 

 nual mortality from this disease for the years 1898 to 1907 in 

 India was 336,378. Much credit is due Haffkine, Nicholi and 

 others, who have studied the germs and .developed a vaccine 

 for the disease. According to one report, among 40,000 who 

 have been vaccinated only six contracted the disease. 



Perhaps the most spectacular of all microbes is the one dis- 

 covered by Kitasato, and responsible for bubonic plague. Ba- 

 cillus pestis is the term applied to this particular germ. From 

 time immemorial this pestilence has existed. In Samuel we 

 find biblical reference to its occurrence among the Philistines. 

 The world has passed through three great epidemics of plague. 

 The first originated at Pelusium, in Egypt, in 542 A. D. By fol- 

 lowing the great trade routes, it soon spread by one route to 

 Alexandria on the north, and by another into Asia, and then 

 to all the known world. At the height of this epidemic, ac- 

 cording to Procopius, an observer, from 5,000 to 10,000 died 

 daily. 



The second great epidemic of plague is known in history as 

 the black death. It originated, so far as can be determined, in 

 Mesopotamia about the middle of the eleventh century. . It is 

 thought that the returning Crusaders during the twelfth and 

 thirteenth centuries assisted in its recrudescence. Again the 

 disease followed the trade routes, and this time it penetrated 

 even farther into Europe. During the epidemic some 25,000.- 

 000 people, or one-fourth of the population of Europe, per- 



