CHESHIRE, AUGUST 1, 1884. 19 



euro." As Dzicrzon .and others liad done, Cheshire refers to two 

 forms of foul brood. Concorninp; tlio appearance of these two forms 

 of the disease, he ^vl'ites as follows: 



The appearance of foul brood is undoubtedly familiar to almost all before me. A 

 larva, if attacked early, begins to move unnaturally, and instead of lying curled round 

 on the base of the cell frequently turns in such a way as to present its dorsal (l)ack) 

 surface to the eye of the observer. A little attention will then show that the colour of 

 the larva is inclined to yellow instead of being pearly white. Such grubs are only 

 rarely sealed over. Those more advanced before the disease strikes them are in due 

 course sealed, but death overtakes them, their bodies become brown and foetid, and 

 the sealing sinking gets pierced by an irregular hole. From this may be gathered the 

 general indications of the disease, which is usually accompanied by very energetic 

 fanning at the hive mouth, from which in advanced cases an indescribable and nau- 

 seating odour is emitted. The larvpe and chrysalids dead of the disease dry up to a 

 coffee-coloured, tenacious mass lying at the bottom of the cell, so tenacious, indeed, 

 that it ma}' be drawn out into long threads like half-dry glue. The drying process 

 completed, a blackish scale is all that remains. 



Chesliire gives here a description of the disease very similar to the 

 one found in Dzierzon's WTitings. His description of the disease when 

 it attacks the larvae early in the developmental stage fits quite well 

 that of European foul brood; and the description which is made of 

 the brood wliich is attacked later in the stage of development is 

 equally accurate for American foul brood. There is little room for 

 doubt that the two forms of foul brood described by Dzierzon and 

 Chesliire are the two distinct diseases, European foul brood and 

 American foul brood. 



Cheshire began his study of the disease by examining^the juices 

 of healthy larvae microscopically. In these he found no bacteria. 

 He then examined the coffee-colored, foul-broody, dead larval mass 

 and observed numerous ovoid bodies which he demonstrated later 

 to be the spores of bacteria. Tliis led him to suspect that Schonfeld 

 had fallen into the error of supposing that these spores were micro- 

 cocci. Having found numerous spores in the remains of larvae which 

 had been dead for a long time, he examined some larvae which were 

 dead but in a fresher condition. In these he observed many rodhke 

 bacteria and fewer spores. He next examined larvae which showed 

 signs of disease, but wliich were yet alive, and found their juices to 

 be filled with actively motile rods. These rods were sometimes ar- 

 ranged in chains — leptothrix forms. He now examined larvae rep- 

 resenting the different stages of the disease, and observed: First, 

 that in the beginning of the attack, rods only were seen; second, 

 as the disease advanced, the rods began to form spores; third, as the 

 larvae assumed the viscid state, spores were ver}'' rapidly formed; 

 and fourth, in a few days only spores in very large numbers were 

 found. These observations on the morphology of the bacillus are 

 good, but the conclusion which he drew from them, "Foul brood, 

 then, is a bacillus disease," is of course unwarranted. 



