INVERTEBRATA, CRYPTOQAMIA, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 1013 



above for tlie fowl-cholera, the eyelids are half closed. At certain 

 times an urgent want of sleep is felt ; later, sleep becomes continuous ; 

 the sick person has to be awakened for his meals. Sleep now takes 

 place in the most various and uncomfortable attitudes, but in such as 

 need no muscular effort; the body gradually becomes stretched out until 

 death ensues quietly and without pain. The patients are sometimes 

 affected at the same time with swellings on the neck, and these have 

 been excised with the effect of curing the disease. The disease appears 

 to differ from that affecting fowls, in its long duration — lasting a 

 year or two in some cases — and in inevitably proving fatal. It 

 is said to attack individuals who have eaten large-necked fowls or 

 fish with swollen gills ; hence these animals should be carefully 

 studied in order to trace the connection between their condition and 

 the disease which attacks human beings. 



With reference to this subject, M. Declat quotes * the cure of two 

 cases of the disease by means of phenic acid, which is used so success- 

 fully in the case of other diseases due undoubtedly to septic organisms. 

 This seems to confirm the belief in a similar origin. The phenic 

 acid solution is injected, 100 drops at a time, and these injections 

 are often repented. A gradual recovery followed the operation in the 

 two cases quoted. 



Fowl-Cholera and Anthrax.t — lu a letter to M. Dumas, 

 M. Pasteur alludes to his experiments J on the cultivation of the 

 fowl-cholera bacterium in fowls' broth (which appear to show that 

 in the process certain principles necessary to the life of the bacterium 

 are removed from the liquid), and to his subsequent ojiiniou that 

 probably fowls vaccinated for the " cholera " would not be proof 

 against antlirax. Numerous exjieriments have, however, since shown 

 him that the effects of anthrax on a medium inoculated against fowl- 

 cholera are slow, small in amount, and difficult to ])r(jduce. Some of 

 his experiments tend to prove that this result is shown in fowls 

 similarly treat(;d, wdiich, if confirmed, shows that an immunity from 

 anthrax can be created by means of a parasitic malady of quite 

 a diti'orent nature. 



Etiology of Anthrax.§ — The origin and mode of propagation of 

 this disastrous disease are considered by M. Pasteur worthy of 

 investigation for the ])urpose of discovering proj)er means for its 

 prevention. Tlic works of Davaine and Delafoud in France, and 

 Pollender and Brauel in Germany, have shown tliat the blood of 

 animals which have died of the disease contains a microscoj)ic 

 parasite, while Koch of Brcslau, in 187G, showed that the vibrionic 

 form of the organism is cupablu of resolution into spores. Witli the 

 support of the MiiiistcT of Agriculture, and the dei)artmental Presi- 

 dent of the General Council of Eure-et-Loire, M. Pasteur, in 1878, 

 instituted experiments on a small flock of sheep near Chartres in the 

 open air. 



Certain sheep were fed on lucerne, wliich had been sprinkled with 



• ' Coinptcs RondiiH,' xc. (1880) pp. 10S8-00. + Ihi.l . xci. (1880) p. 315. 

 X See aiih; p. 1010. § ' Omptes Rendus,' x.-i. (1880) p. 86. 



