156 RECENT RESEARCHES 



finds depends on the Bacillus miniums. Klebs and Tomassi 

 Crudeli have shown the connection between certain filamentous 

 Bacteria and Intermittent Fever ; and M. Richard says that he 

 detects malarial Bacteria in the red blood-cells, where they grow 

 and undergo development. But here, again, the doctors differ. 

 Dr. G. N. Sternberg, of the United States, who has been 

 investigating the subject, does not consider the evidence sufficient, 

 and though he does not say that the Bacillus Malarice. is not the 

 cause of malarial fever, he suggests that the experime7itiim crucis 

 should be made on man himself, isolating and cultivating the 

 various organisms, and investigating their action when taken into 

 the stomach, or respired in a dry state by healthy individuals — an 

 experiment to which, if a willing subject could be found, even our 

 own anti-vivisectionists might not object. Some observations 

 made during a famine which occurred at Breslau, in 1872, showed 

 that a species of Spirillum bears a definite relation to epidemic 

 visitations of famine-fever, the cork-screw-like threads being 

 invariably found in the blood ; and in India the specific 

 nature of the disease has been proved by the inoculation of 

 quadrumana with infected blood. 



This brings us to Koch's recent and brilliant discovery of the 

 Bacillus Tuberculosis. It was suggested more than thirty years ago, 

 by Dr. Budd of Bristol, that tubercle^ which constitutes the essence 

 of such diseases as Consumption and Scrofula, was analagous to the 

 eruptive fevers in everything but the slowness of its progress. Since 

 his time other observers have shown that it can be inoculated in the 

 lower animals from the human subject ; while others again have 

 proved that similar infection can be caused by allowing animals to 

 breathe air charged with tuberculous matter. In the meantime 

 the belief arose that the common eruptive fevers were caused by 

 Bacteria; and now it has been shown, by Koch, that they are 

 also always found in connection with tubercle. 



Koch's first method of preparing the tuberculous matter to 

 exhibit the Bacteria was the following: — It is kept in contact 

 for about twenty-four hours with a half-per-cent. solution of 

 methylin blue; a small quantity of a ten-per-cent. solution of 

 caustic potash is then added; and after this it is stained for a 

 minute or two, with a concentrated solution of vesuvin, and then 



