CHEYNE, AUGUST, 1885. 29 



should have been given to the apiculdiral world. In their absence, it ia hardly pos- 

 eible that we could have all been in the dark ho long. 



Because of the important bearing wliich the work of Chesliirc and 

 Cheyne has upon the names of the two infectious bee diseases, and 

 upon the names now apphed to the bacteria found in the diseased 

 larvffi, it might be well before takmg up the work of Clieyne to con- 

 sider these two men briefly and judge from the evidence at hand their 

 rchition to each other. 



C'hesMre was a man who wrote considerably upon bees and bee 

 keeping, being apparently more or less familiar with the habits, 

 anatonw, and manipulation of bees. From his writings about the 

 diseases of bees, however, one at once suspects that his experience in 

 tliis line of apiculture was quite limited. His conception of the 

 etiolog}'' of diseases in general was e\ddently veiy inaccurate. His 

 bacteriological knowledge was wanting. Of tliis he was undoubtedly 

 aware, as he later intrusted this part of the work to Cheyne, who was 

 then working in a biological laboratoiy at South Kensington, London. 



Cheyne is a man who is familiar wdth the technique of disease inves- 

 tigation. He was apparently, however, not familiar with the disease, 

 foul brood, at the time he received the sample from Cheshire. This 

 fact, however, does not discredit the actual work which Cheyne did. 



If this was the relation existing at that time between these two men, 

 and if this is a correct interpretation of their loiowledge, respectively, 

 of foul brood, then it is not strange that Che^Tie should have been 

 sUghtly misled by the opinion of Cheshire on two very important 

 points in his work. These two erroneous ideas which Che3^ne evi- 

 dentl}' gleaned from Chesliire were, firstly, that foul brood was one 

 disease, and secondly, that the disease had been produced by Cheshire 

 experimentally by using pure cultures of Bacillus alvei. 



Cheyne, August, 1885. 



Cheyne in his contribution ^ records the first creditable work done on 

 the microorganisms found in foul brood. One observes that Cheshire 

 writes:^ 



To-day [August 11, 1884] I have been with Mr. Watson Cheyne in the Biological 

 Laboratory, South Kensington, and there we have started some experiments, of which 

 more will have to be said hereafter * * *. 



And Chejme begins his paper by writing: 



On August 11, 1884, Mr. Cheshire brought to me a piece of comb containing larvje 

 affected with foul brood * * *. 



1 Cheshire, Frank R., F. R. M. S., F. L. S., and W. Watson Cheyne, M. B., F. R. C. S., August, 1885. 

 The pathogenic history and history under cultivation of a new bacilUis fi?. a^rd), the cause of a disease 

 of the hive bee hitherto known as foul brood. Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, Ser. II, Vol. V, 

 Part 2, Plates X and XI, pp. 581-601. (For the portion wTitten by Cheyne see also Report of the meet- 

 ing of inspectors of apiaries, San Antonio, Tex., November 12, 1906. U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Bureau of Entomology, Bulletin No. 70, June 17, 1907, pp. 28-35.) 



'Cheslure, Frank R., August 15, 1SS4. I. c. 



